Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Armah, Ayi Kwei (Vol. 136) - Ahmed Saber （essay date 1989）

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Ahmed Saber （essay date 1989）

SOURCE: “Ayi Kwei Armah's Myth-making in The Healers,” in Literature of Africa and the African Continuum, edited by Jonathan A. Peters, Mildred P. Mortimer, and Russell V. Linneman, Three Continents Press, 1989, pp. 5-14.

[In the following essay, Saber discusses Armah's creation of a traditional African myth in the novel The Healers.]

The Healers'¹ integral structure is based on myth-making through which it attains symbolic proportions. In fact, Armah superimposes on its history of the Asante Empire a mythic level which is crucial to a full understanding of the novel. Since “a myth always refers to events alleged to have taken place in time” and “explains the present and the past as well as the future,”² the two intentions of myth and history are compatible. The Healers demands mythic interpretation, but it is informed by no classical European myth....

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. S. Nyamfukudza （review date 7 March 1980）
   2. Kofi Owusu （essay date Spring 1988）
   3. Ahmed Saber （essay date 1989）
   4. Taban lo Liyong （essay date 1991）
   5. Derek Wright （essay date 1991）
   6. Edward Sackey （essay date Autumn 1991）
   7. Adewale Maja-Pearce （essay date 1993）
   8. Ode S. Ogede （essay date April 1993）
   9. B. M. Ibitokun （essay date Spring/Fall 1993）
   10. Leif Lorentzon （essay date 1994）
   11. K. Damodar Rao （essay date July 1994）
   12. Chinyere Nwahunanya （essay date 1995）
   13. Paul R. Petrie （essay date Summer 1997）
   14. Samuel A. Dseagu （essay date 1998）
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright

1. African Literature