The Sun By Night
By Benjamin Kwakye. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2006; pp.320. £12.99 (pb). ISBN 1592213502. Reviewed by Marcus Power, University of Durham. ©Marcus Power, 2008.
In The Sun By Night, the Ghanaian writer Benjamin Kwakye, one of the most accomplished of a new generation of African novelists, has produced possibly the most important Ghanaian novel since those of Ayi Kwei Armah, establishing Kwakye as a premier African literary voice. Kwakye, born in Accra, is a recipient of the 2000 Afrique Newsmagazine W.E.B. DuBois Award for Literature and his first novel, The Clothes of Nakedness, received the 1999 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book (Africa Region) and was adapted for radio as a BBC play of the Week.
Kwakye's latest offering, which won the Commonwealth Writers Prize in 2006, is an artistic, deep and thorough treatise of the issues facing post‐colonial Ghana. The novel takes the form of a court trial, reported by an enterprising and courageous journalist, in which a wealthy businessman and former politician, Koo Manu, stands accused of the murder of an Accra prostitute named Akwele. The trial merely serves as a window that opens out onto a variety of issues in post‐colonial Ghana and Africa as a whole that African novelists have long been concerned with: the inequalities between rich and poor; the post independence malaise; the struggle between tradition and modernity; the causes and consequences of prostitution; the relationship between father and son; the role and position of women; the differences between generations; the insensitivity and corruption of political and economic elites; marriage, love and polygamy. Like Armah's The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, Kwakye's novel provides a very thorough exposure of corruption in various sectors of the Ghanaian state. Whereas Armah dealt with the national liberation period and the rise and fall of Kwame Nkrumah, Kwakye's novel evolves against the background of political events from the late 1960s (e.g. the period of civilian rule led by Dr. Kobi Abrefa Busia) through to the overthrow of Hilla Liman in the early 1980s in a coup led by Jerry Rawlings.
The novel's title as well as the headings of the three books within it alert the reader to the possibility that Kwakye intends to explore a complex yet ultimately very bizarre set of circumstances. Apart from the heading of the first book, The Abused Road, these are all suggestive of the paradoxical or even apocalyptic: The Sun by Night, The Eclipse of the Mother and The Rain of Snow. The novel itself, suggests tremendous confusion, upheaval, disaster and despair, but ultimately there is the possibility and hope of better things to come. The journalist's reporting of the trial provides an enveloping narrative that links together the other threads of the story woven around the main participants or witnesses in the drama. The journalist in this story is rather like Ikem Isodi (in Achebe's Anthills of the Savannah), in that he is honest and courageous and is not afraid to speak the truth and criticise an immoral and brutal regime regardless of the consequences. Like many writers in Africa before him, he is arrested, beaten and imprisoned.
The Sun By Night is an insightful story in many ways, providing important social commentary. Kwakye explores the social and psychological causes for the bizarre behaviour of most of the characters in the novel and he is not afraid to tackle the important issue of polygamy from both female and male points of view. Kwakye also includes a very thorough exploration of the causes, nature and consequences of prostitution. In this regard, the conversation between Kubi, disguised as Kwamena, and the intelligent prostitute Ama Badu is quite revealing. Although Kwamena depends on prostitutes for the satisfaction of some of his deepest needs he decides to adopt a high moral tone and to castigate the prostitute for doing something for a living that is demonstrably wrong. Kwakye's novel shows however that the vast majority are forced into prostitution by poverty, lack of opportunity, or by unscrupulous relations or acquaintances. The novel also consistently reflects on the importance of tradition in Ghana, presenting traditional attitudes, beliefs and practices, portraying ceremonies in which the ancestors and the traditional gods are invoked and depicting traditional protocol and traditional beliefs in attitudes towards questions of polygamy and marriage. Adherence to traditional practices is also seen in the celebration of Koo Manu's betrothal and wedding and in the christening of his first child.
This ambitious and highly imaginative novel offers a compelling revelation of post‐colonial concerns. Apart from the manipulation of language and narrative technique, Kwakye evokes some incredibly realistic scenes such as in his presentation of police and military brutality, in the church scenes, and in the sexual encounters between various people. Around the framework of the trial Kwakye brilliantly weaves together events, settings and characterisations in this highly readable and engaging book.