Eguria

  THEMES (THEMATIC PREOCCUPATION)     Xenophobia in Africa   Xenophobia is a strong feeling of dislike, hatred or fear of people from other countries. The novelist explores its phenomenon as a theme – its causes and consequences.   In examining the causes of this hatred for one another includes bad government policy, vision less leaders, and the need to revenge and rewrite the past history.     In the novel, xenophobia occurs in an attempt to right the wrong of the Ghanaian community at first.   According to Mama the then opposition party accused aliens, that is, non-citizens of ruining the country, or the government of that time has made a mess of its management of the affairs of the Ghanaian economy and blamed their failure to do things right   on us aliens as scapegoats.   Life becomes quite unbearable to learn that Mama Orojo and her family are unwanted in a country they have come to regard to be their home.   “We were aliens, they said and we had to regularize our

      UNEXPECTED JOY AT DAWN -ALEX AGYEI – AGYIRI   Alex Agyei-Agyiri is a Ghanaian novelist, poet, and guest writer for the Writer’s Project of Ghana-born at Adamoribe in the Akwapin South District of the Eastern Region of Ghana.   He is a product of the University of Ghana, Legion, and a legal practitioner.     His works include the award-winning poems. “Passover”. “Ancestral faces” and “This death call” and adjudged to be among the best-selected poems for the BBC Arts and African poetry award for 1982 and 1984. His two collections of poetry won the Ghana Association of writer’s literary prize for literature in 1982 and the Valco Award for literature in 1982. Unexpected Joy at Dawn is his first novel and it won a Valco literacy award for literature for the best manuscripts in Ghana in 1988 under the title “Alien”.   This novel was “commended” at 2005 Commonwealth writers’ prize, African Region.   SETTING BACKGROUND OF THE NOVEL   The setting of the novel is both tra