Akofena (Dec 2022)
Writing Culture: Ordained by the Oracle by Asare Konadu as an African Ethnographic Novel Unveiling the Asante’s Traditions
Abstract
The paper beams its searchlights on the ethnographic mode of narration in the crafting of the narrative fiction — Ordained by the Oracle (1969) by Asare Konadu. The novel is scrutinized as an inventory of Asante’s customs, and moral, social, and religious philosophy. It is an art of thick descriptions, the intricate interweaving of plots and counterplots. Asare Konadu is labeled here as a journalist-novelist and ethnographer-novelist who has adhered strictly to social ethnographic facts as he pertained to the etched culture. Konadu has selected some Asante ethnographic data (funeral ritual performances, mythology, divination, chieftainship, etc. and woven them into a plot around an imaginary Asante hero and heroine through a hybrid writing genre—ethnographic fiction encompassing compelling events and useful ethnographic detail which advance the reader’s ability to understand the constrictions of circumstance on characters. The objective of this research paper is to ferret out the Asante ethnographic data, and their cultural experience and appreciate how they are crafted into this creative writing’s narrative framework.
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