Orality in Ghanaian Newspaper Narratives: An Analysis of Yankah’s Woes of a Kwatriot.

Abstract

The study explores the influence of orality on Ghanaian prose by explicating the verbal art strategies utilized by Yankah (1990) in his newspaper writing, Woes of a Kwatriot, and, by so doing, illustrating how the interaction between literature and journalism help in bringing about a vector of expression that reveals indigenous literary values. Yankah foregrounds tensions in the Ghanaian society using the medium of orality in a newspaper format, showcasing how indigenous literary modes can facilitate and enhance the quality of the journalism prose. In other words, Yankah saw the emergence of experimental writing as crucial in bringing Ghana, at the margin, to the centre of not only literary production but to the global arena where the writer can play a big role in shaping the fortunes of the people. Yankah is making the case that the African writer should not only mimic what obtains in the established Western canons. Rather, he or she must consciously facilitate the creation of new forms, an example being combining African elements with the Western long form such as lodging orality in journalism prose in a bid to mediate “the forces of modernity”.