Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Armah, Ayi Kwei (Vol. 136) - Paul R. Petrie （essay date Summer 1997）

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Paul R. Petrie （essay date Summer 1997）

SOURCE: “The Politics of Inspiration in Ayi Kwei Armah's The Healers,” in Critique, Vol. 38, No. 4, Summer, 1997, pp. 279-88.

[In the following essay, Petrie argues that Armah's intent in writing The Healers “is not to provide practical instruction in revolution, but to promote a body of ideals to inspire and guide meaningful and lasting change that includes, but goes well beyond, the realm of the political.”]

Critics of Ayi Kwei Armah's most recent novel are unanimous in recognizing the central opposition between inspiration and manipulation that both structures the novel and constitutes its philosophy,¹ and in identifying the essential idealism of the novel's scheme. Most critics, however, consider The Healers seriously flawed and find the source of its deficiencies in the very fact of its idealism. The novel's weakness, the arguments go, is that 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