Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Armah, Ayi Kwei (Vol. 136) - Ode S. Ogede （essay date April 1993）

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Ode S. Ogede （essay date April 1993）

SOURCE: “The Rhetoric of Revolution in Armah's The Healers: Form as Experience,” in African Studies Review, Vol. 36, No. 1, April, 1993, pp. 43-58.

[In the following essay, Ogede asserts that Armah's The Healers signals a change in the novelist's portrayal of revolution and that the novel contains a previously unseen element of optimism.]

The Healers, Ayi Kwei Armah's most recent novel （1978）, has received less critical attention than it deserves given the importance of its theme—the sociopolitical liberation of Africa—and the compelling textual strategies it deploys towards that end.¹ What scanty criticism it has attracted has concentrated only on the novelist's social vision, with the debates centering on the degree of faithfulness to the historical materials on which he bases his novel. Nevertheless, without due attention paid to the rhetoric, the...

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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