Black Star Rising: a creative exploration of Ghana’s independence

Abstract

This thesis consists of a short story cycle, using a multiperspective approach to craft a series of perspectives on the Independence Day celebrations Ghana in 1957, and a critical commentary which contextualises the creative work by thinking through legacies of colonialism, the relationship between memory and forgetting, and the complex relationship with contemporary literary practice across Ghanaian, African, and Anglophone fiction.
The short story cycle is based on, and inspired by, interviews with people who witnessed the Independence Day celebrations in Ghana in 1957. Where original witnesses were not available the testimony of friends and family members who had heard the stories from the witnesses were used. When even this second-hand testimony was unavailable then letters, diaries and, in some cases, published memoir were used in order to glean material to inspire the stories.
With the exception of the Duchess of Kent, none of the characters in these stories represent real people. However, they are often inspired by an amalgam of the characters and reminiscences told to me during the research interviews conducted before writing. The stories have been written by a middle-class white European who was not present at the events described, but who has family links to some of the events. Implicit bias is therefore acknowledged.
The critical commentary that accompanies this short story cycle examines the concept of the ‘implicated observer’ and questions the appropriateness of such an observer fictionalising historical events which are not part of their culture. It considers questions of literary legacy, colonial history, and feminist perspectives, offering critical, theoretical and practice-based creative insights through a series of chapter ‘shards’.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Bridget Blankley: orcid.org/0000-0003-3226-6332

ORCID for Ranka Primorac: orcid.org/0000-0003-1127-1175

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