Kofi Awoonor killed in Nairobi shooting
Ghanaian poet and diplomat Kofi Awoonor is among the dozens killed during the recent attack on Westgate Mall, Nairobi. He passed away on Saturday, aged 78. Since then the literary world has been ablaze in tribute.
Awoonor was most noted for his poetry inspired by the oral tradition of the Ewe people, to which he belonged. He was also Ghana’s representative to the United Nations from 1990 to 1994.
He was in Nairobi for the Storymoja Hay Festival, a literary festival held each year in Nairobi. There he joined poets Kwame Dawes, Nii Parkes, Warsan Shire, Clifton Gachagua, and novelist Teju Cole. Warsan Shire, a young Somalian poet who was due to speak at the Festival, tweeted that Professor Awoonor was “one of our greatest poets”.
“Kofi Awoonor is easily one of the great poets of Africa and has been for many years,” said Kwame Dawes (a relative of Awonoor), who has been cited in most of the news reports following Awoonor's death. “There’s a great deal of respect for him and admiration of his work. This has been a big blow and a major loss.” Dawes has posted a moving tribute on The Wall Street Journal, where you can also read one of Awoonor’s final poems.
Awoonor’s first collection, Rediscovery and Other Poems, was published in 1964, and he wrote three subsequent collections and a prose poem between then and 1971. Earlier this year it was announced that The Promise of Hope, a collection of his new and selected poems from 1964 to 2013, will be published in March 2014.
