Woman of the Aeroplanes

by Kojo Laing

Villagers from the magical community of Tukwan in the Asante region of Ghana travel to their sister city, Levensvale, in Scotland

Genres: African Literature, Ghana, Africa

196 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

B. Kojo Laing or Bernard Kojo Laing (1 July 1946 – 20 April 2017) was a Ghanaian novelist and poet, whose writing is characterised by its hybridity, whereby he uses Ghanaian Pidgin English and vernacular languages alongside standard English. His first two novels in particular – Search Sweet Country (1986) and Woman of the Aeroplanes (1988) – were praised for their linguistic originality, both books including glossaries that feature the author's neologisms as well as Ghanaian words.

Reviews

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

what we've got here is a sort of plotless, comic kind of thing, with lots of dick jokes and puns and wordplay, and fun stuff like that. lots of funny parts like, guy who sleeps under a mercedes benz with his wife, guy with a vulture that perches on his pipe, inventing a 'stupidity machine', and others too. you can also tell that the book is cool because there's a glossary of words at the end, some of which are local ghanaian words, and some of which the author just made up.

[Travis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a blast, hilarious and extremely clever and not really like anything I've ever read. A magical invisible city in Ghana sends delegates to a sister magical invisible city in Scotland and hilarity and magic ensues. The way magic is described here is wonderful, fully using the medium of the written word to describe illogical, impossible, almost cartoonish things (like airplanes seemingly hanging in mid-air for people to have conversations or allow a late comer to climb up to with a ladder) that give the entire novel the quality of an especially vivid dream.

[Wole Talabi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book quite hard to read but also sort-of enjoyable in its difficulty, originality and absurdity.

Kojo Laing's second novel is set in Ghana and Scotland, and tells the story of Tukwan, a town out of space and time, full of immortals who all have elements of wild creativity. They embark on a journey to Levensvale (a similar town in Scotland) with two airplanes bought by their leader Pokuaa, to meet and trade. But the book isn't much about the plot. It seems more to be an adventure story that explores the roles of mythology, religion, creativity, science and technology, politics and gender roles in society using what I can only describe as dream logic. Its also full of inventive wordplay and neologisms and equations and reading it feels sometimes a bit like going mad. I'd cautiously recommend it but only for those who know what they are getting into.

[James Mackay · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a densely plotted book, rich with word play across English, Twi, and Scots. The prose is extraordinary, full of surreal images and brilliantly drawn characters, while the novel as a whole constitutes a meditation on many themes, including death, time, modernity, postcoloniality, myth and reality. It's also really funny and has a lot of dirty jokes. Reading this took me a long time, including frequent recourse to the glossary at the back and frequent returns to earlier pages to try to disentangle various characters. A lot of that reflects my own ignorance of Ghana, of course, and a Ghanaian reader would likely have a very different experience.

At different moments a work of science fiction, postmodernism, magical realism and a loving portrayal of small town society in both Scotland and Ghana, this one will stay with me for some time. A genuine classic of world literature.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, this was certainly something. It was the longest I've ever taken to read a <200 page book. In many ways, it's a hard book to read. It's not so much a linear or straightforward thing and tends to be discursive. It throws a lot of Ghanian or somewhat pidgin at you. There is also a ton of puns or other wordplay that's real easy to miss if you skim or glaze over the non-standard English. Suffice to say Laing does some real interesting things with language.

All that being said, it's enjoyable. It's funny, it's an interesting story, and out seemingly nowhere on page 144 there's just an extended diatribe about the racist Church being in bed with Nazis and racists. As relevant today as when it was written.

[Otto]

A

[Avery]

I don’t think I understood a lot of it, therefore no rating