Nana S. Achampong: A rising Ghanaian Author

22.08.2008 LISTEN

Nana S. Achampong was born in Cape Coast November 26, 1964, the third of seven siblings. His mother was the Principal of a midwifery school. His father, who soon became absent from their lives, was a lawyer. He died in 1995. His education was scattered all over the place due to his mother moving from region to region as a fast track to promotion from nurse educator to school principal. By the time he entered St. Hubert's Seminary School in Santasi, Kumasi, the eleven-year old Achampong had already attended eight different schools and lived in as many far flung regions. A few more schools later [after he was expelled] he had to sit his ordinary level examinations as a private candidate.

His step father, a publishing distributor, stacked thousands of literary classics in their middle-class professional Korle-Bu residence which opened the mid-teenager's imagination to Huysman, Chaucer, Dostoyevsky, Mann, Nietzsche, Homer, Soyinka, Aryi kwei Armah, Rand etc. He agrees that this is the period where his love for writing actually gained life. At seventeen, he had finished his first book 'Seekers Find' (unpublished) part of which appears in 'Dream A Song'. And this is the era where his musical inspiration focuses on the guitar which his uncle had left in their home. [Achampong took the guitar more seriously in Glasgow, Scotland, where he mixed its passion with a love for art and poetry.]

Through the insistence of his mother, young Achampong who did not qualify to enter the University of Ghana-Legon due to poor Advanced Level grades entered the then radical Ghana Institute of Journalism where he blossomed under the directorship of renowned journalists Kabral Blay Amihere and Kojo Yankah. Here photography and appreciation met political economy and J. J. Rawlings and the result was liberation journalism[1] .
Achampong's sojourn at this institute is significant because this is where, for the first time in his erratic life he actually settled down long enough to see through and finish an entire academic program. Secondly, this is where he made friends who would in the ensuing years become his muses, sounding board and fan base. But more importantly, the Institute would bring him in contact with literati, politicians, thinkers, luminaries the likes of the maverick president J. J. Rawlings, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, legendary African Art Musician Ephraim Amu, the renaissance sculptor and impresario Saka Acquaye, and ground-breaking radio broadcaster Carl Agyeman-Bannerman [who introduced him to Fela Anikulapo Kuti] [2].

In the United Kingdom, Achamong was enrolled in an MBA program with the Open University but returned to Ghana halfway through to start 'The Wind' magazine.
After journalism school, he interned at the 'Weekly Spectator', where under the wings of the award-winning editor Yaw Boakye Ofori-Atta he started focusing on the arts and entertainment. He was coached to run the Arts Page which qualified him to become a member of the Entertainment Critics and Reviewers Association of Ghana. Under the tutelage of Carl Bannerman and film maker Ernest Abbeyquaye, he became the youngest Secretary of the king-making body in 1988 still barely twenties. The late 1980s was hectic for the restless Achampong. Between the two years before the decade was over, he teamed up with media entrepreneur RexImage's Rex Danquah to create the 'Weekend Leisure' newspaper. Then with Kojo Yankah, he started the 'Uhuru' monthly magazine.
The cultural maverick, the late Fela Anikulapo Kuti, after his second of several encounters with Achampong in the late 1980s, told Carl Bannerman on his 'Solid Black' radio programme in Ghana of the Achampong's writing style: “he does acrobatics with the English language. That is how Africans mus' be. Whatever it is that has been pushed onto you, you have to excel at it and then reproduce it in your own unique African way. And that is what he is doing.” [3]

Achampong's first book of verse, 'The Equilibrists', was published in much later in 1995 to rave critical reviews. His second volume of verse 'Floating' was published another ten years later, opening the gates to a flood of prolificacy. The novel 'Dream a Song' was the next release soon after, followed by 'Sun of God', a play in five acts. Achampong's fecund imagination continued around the recurring theme which encompasses his childhood influences of African culture, antiquity, a schizophrenic social conditioning and the quest for love and the divine. His subsequent works, the inspirational nonfictions 'Empowernomics: understanding the system of God's purpose for mankind' and 'Adinkra (ī'kŏn')-cepts: [concept ikons of the Asante Akan of West Africa]' which traces the history of the symbology and the Akans of West Africa complete with a sumptuous buffet of pictures and illustrations, followed. 'My Kikuyu Princess', a collection of poems from 'Empowernomics' and 'Adinkra' was released soon after. In the Spring of 2008, 'venusplazadotcom', the much awaited second novel, a sequel of sorts to 'Dream A Song', hit the stands.
In 1999, in collaboration with Joyful Way Incorporated and Village Communications, Achampong scripted, produced and directed his first feature film 'The Ultimate Sacrifice'. [4]

BOOKS

1995 'The Equilibrists', Achampong's first book, published by Leroy Coubagey. The bulk of verse in 'Equilibrists' was actually written in Glasgow, Scotland, between 1990 and 1993.
March 2006 'Floating', another book of verse started in 1994 [including some verses from 'Equilibrists'] finished in 2000 and first published on Lulu. Sandi Mallory of Baltimore's WEAA 88.9 FM and Lite FM describes the book thus: “From the daily death of the sun to the cry of a sister for the life of a brother, from [John] Coltrane's melodic place in history to the griot's spoken path creating history, we view places seen and unseen. Paths traveled with timeworn shoes and an international vision. Pain and joy from a heart full from the sights of many missions.” [5]
May 2006 'Dream A Song', based on a satirical series that Achampong wrote for 'The Wind' magazine under the column 'Made In Ghana” [finally finished in 1997]first published on Lulu. In the book, the protagonist Ansong says it like it is. In his world, nothing is sacred. Except facts. His uninhibited disposition drags one through a wretched yet hopeful Africa that is lived everyday yet remains unseen by outsiders. Through his warped sense of logic, one is ushered into an analysis, nay dissection, of the fundamental tenets of West African urban life: the middleclass which he describes as “a bunch of privileged, pampered plonkers [undergoing] an awesome abortion; the press as “a conduit of nonsense”; tribalism as a virtue; and, Nigeria as the cause of everyone's problems. Achampong tackles these and other sensitive pressing issues through discussions among a motley assortment of opinionated nincompoops and Ansong's own twisted observations, fantasies and nightmares. "Dream A Song" is described as a strange feast of foreign food – delicious, spicy, sometimes utterly repulsive in an empathetic way, but always leaving one with a funny lingering

aftertaste. [6]
February 2007 'Sun of God', a play about Central Africa that inspired by dancer/actress/model Mulowa Kajoba published on Lulu. This is a play in five acts about a story of greed for power through the mad pursuit of copper. The story has everything - a pinch of avarice here, another of envy there, a little taste of love and hate, and of great deeds and fate. This landscape is filled with tales of ambition with lofty mountains of deception and passionate valleys of corruption, all set in pre-colonial Central Africa.[7]

February 2008 'Empowernomics: understanding the system of God's purpose for mankind - an Outline of the Core Teachings of Rev. GENE C. BRADFORD' following an epiphanic meeting he had with the Christian Scholar/teacher. This is an effort to invite Christians to a journey of understanding the system of God's purpose for mankind. According to Achampong, like the governor Nehemiah says of the skilled scribe Ezra, Bradford “read[s] distinctly from the book, in the Law of God; and … [gives] the sense, and help[s] [us]… to understand the reading”. He speaks about pain and problems. For instance, he explains that these are experiences that Christians have to go through. Or there would be no Calvary, and therefore no salvation. “Why then do you pray your problems away? You are supposed to endure and learn from them so that God may be glorified. Remember that it rains on both the sinner and the righteous alike,” he says. [8]

May 2008 'Adinkra (ī'kŏn')-cepts: [concept ikons of the Asante Akan of West Africa]', Achampong's seventh book published on Lulu. This book, his second non-fiction, traces the origin of the Adinkra symbols, the concepts and aphorisms they represent, and the origin of the Akan of West Africa; it discusses the phenomenon's nuances, evolution and current applications. Achampong enhances the definitive work with a sumptuous buffet of pictures and illustrations.

June 2008 'My Kikuyu Princess' is Achampong's third book of verse after 'The Equilibrists' and 'Floating' published. It is made up of a collection of poems from his nonfiction book 'Adinkra Ikoncepts of the Ashanti Akans', his novel 'venusplazadotcom' and previously unpublished material.
July 2008 'venusplazadotcom', published on Lulu. This current Achampong novel had been described severally as “disturbing”, “sick”, “bold”, “ground-breaking”, and “original”. No matter whom you listen to, that it is a sizzling piece of literature is beyond dispute. Baba Abdulai of news editor of New Vision newspaper summed it up as “a ghost story in cyber space” [9] while Gold-FM's B. B. Menson says that “it is online dating gone terribly wrong” [10]. The author though insists it is a story about strangers who fall in love – online, and in higher realms. “It is just a story of the times we live in mixed with a hint of vodou and lots and lots of verse,” explains Achampong. What he chose to not say is that it also deals rather graphically with more than a few pages of racy lesbian sex chat. But not to digress...According to a blurp on the publishers site on www.lulu.com, venusplazadotcom, “Achampong's second novel, a sequel of sorts to the critically acclaimed Dream A Song, is an eerie, disturbing and misty introspective of the immigrant underground in Maryland, as seen through the lives of an intergalactic cast whose incursions into CyberSpace, the supernatural, and the back streets of Baltimore leave behind a trail of darkness and mysteriously bloodless chills. Online, off-line and astral interactions blur and interconnect as the seemingly clueless lead character brings the reader into the streets of Baltimore through the eyes of an undocumented immigrant, and then connects him/her into a virtual world of avatars who end up brutally dead, peculiarly, to the bafflement of the Baltimore City and County Police Departments.

This eighth addition to his catalog establishes Achampong firmly as a fixture in the Maryland literary system. New Vision's Abdulai concludes that this is the "clearly the most refreshing read on the market continent-wide".

References
1. 'GIJ
2. 'Solid Black' Archives, GBC 2
3. 'Solid Black' Archives, GBC 2
4. www.joyfulway.com
5. Sandi Mallory, blurb on 'Floating' back page
6. www.lulu.com/achampong
7. www.lulu.com/achampong
8. 'New Vision' Weekly
9. 'New Vision' Weekly
10. 'Radio Gold' Library

Sources
'Weekly Spectator'
'New Vision' weekly
'Graphic Show Biz'

See Also
www.genecbradford.ning.com
www.ged4all.ning.com
www.theedenproject.ning.com