What do you think?
Rate this book
Literary Culture in Colonial Ghana: How to Play the Game of Life
". . . a book that will break new ground in African cultural studies. . . . [it] will appeal not only to literary scholars but also to social historians and cultural anthropologists." ―Karin Barber
Focusing on the broad educational aims of the colonial administration and missionary societies, Stephanie Newell draws on newspaper archives, early unofficial texts, and popular sources to uncover how Africans used literacy to carve out new cultural, social, and economic spaces for themselves. Newly literate Africans not only shaped literary tastes in colonial Africa but also influenced how and where English was spoken; established standards for representations of gender, identity, and morality; and created networks for African literary production, dissemination, and reception throughout British West Africa. Newell reveals literacy and reading as powerful social forces that quickly moved beyond the missionary agenda and colonial regulation. A fascinating literary, social, and cultural history of colonial Ghana, Literary Culture in Colonial Ghana sheds new light on understandings of the African colonial experience and the development of postcolonial cultures in West Africa.
Focusing on the broad educational aims of the colonial administration and missionary societies, Stephanie Newell draws on newspaper archives, early unofficial texts, and popular sources to uncover how Africans used literacy to carve out new cultural, social, and economic spaces for themselves. Newly literate Africans not only shaped literary tastes in colonial Africa but also influenced how and where English was spoken; established standards for representations of gender, identity, and morality; and created networks for African literary production, dissemination, and reception throughout British West Africa. Newell reveals literacy and reading as powerful social forces that quickly moved beyond the missionary agenda and colonial regulation. A fascinating literary, social, and cultural history of colonial Ghana, Literary Culture in Colonial Ghana sheds new light on understandings of the African colonial experience and the development of postcolonial cultures in West Africa.
252 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2002
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
June 26, 2025
Wow this was super interesting. It's not just about literature, this book really brings you on a journey through society of colonial Ghana, and the various ways people carved out their own literate culture in opposition to the colonialists who tried to stifle it's development.
Just all-around interesting people and subcultures that I will be thinking of for a long time. Like the literary club gentlemen who developed their own verbose way of speaking and writing English, really loving the art and creativity of the language, in opposition to the colonialists who wanted everyone to speak in a mechanical simplified form.
I thought it's interesting how certain Victorian authors had immense popularity in Ghana that are long forgotten in the west. Marie Corelli for example, I'm sure that some westerners have heard of her but she was completely denounced as a hack writer by the bourgeoisie in England, but her books were of immense popularity in the general public back then, and she survived longer in the consciousness of West Africa. Even more interesting is Bertha Clay, who's a completely forgotten pseudonymous author in the west I'd wager, but is still read in Ghana to this day. That's so interesting to me and I wanna go read them now.
Another cool book I ought to look into is Ethiopia Unbound, an early pan-African novel by Casely Hayford. This one also got bad reviews because the story is suppoused to run thin but the political message and experimental structure of it seem fascinating.
Anyways this book is a banger and I recommend it to any curious person
Just all-around interesting people and subcultures that I will be thinking of for a long time. Like the literary club gentlemen who developed their own verbose way of speaking and writing English, really loving the art and creativity of the language, in opposition to the colonialists who wanted everyone to speak in a mechanical simplified form.
I thought it's interesting how certain Victorian authors had immense popularity in Ghana that are long forgotten in the west. Marie Corelli for example, I'm sure that some westerners have heard of her but she was completely denounced as a hack writer by the bourgeoisie in England, but her books were of immense popularity in the general public back then, and she survived longer in the consciousness of West Africa. Even more interesting is Bertha Clay, who's a completely forgotten pseudonymous author in the west I'd wager, but is still read in Ghana to this day. That's so interesting to me and I wanna go read them now.
Another cool book I ought to look into is Ethiopia Unbound, an early pan-African novel by Casely Hayford. This one also got bad reviews because the story is suppoused to run thin but the political message and experimental structure of it seem fascinating.
Anyways this book is a banger and I recommend it to any curious person
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review