Faceless

Description

“Amma Darko’s very first novel was published in a German translation in 1991 under the title Der Verkoufte Traum, and was published in its English original in the Heinemann African Writers Series in 1995 as Beyond the Horizon and in French as Par de la Horizon, A decade or so later, we now pay homage to her third novel, simply and ominously titled Faceless, again being published in English and in German and Spanish translations. In between Beyond the Horizon and Faceless, we have The Housemaid, also published in both a German 8 translation and in the Heinemann African Writers Series in 1998. There is more than ample evidence that these three works constitute an important trilogy and must be read as such. Perhaps the most frightening lesson in Faceless is the fact that having lost their moral authority over their children, parents like Maa Tsuru are totally paralyzed by fear, the fear of terrors such as Poison… Fofo in her innocence, insists she wants to see Government..What she doesn’t know is that the Government itself has lost its priorities, its sense of direction; it has become dysfunctional and deaf to the cries of children abandoned… In Amma Darko’s Beyond the Horizon, The Housemaid, and especially Faceless, there is a wake-up call to us as grandmothers/Grandfathers, as Mothers but especially as Fathers. It is not enough to sow the seeds of human life in quick, repeated sessions of reckless ecstasy. Beyond the delight of tears, beyond the passionate intensity of countless orgasms, the future of our children, of our own morality and ancestry awaits our constant vigilance and careful nurturing No seed grows into harvest joys without the planters’ diligent labor of love. Until we come to this understanding as parents, as family, and as a community, we will forever stand condemned by the anguish in the eyes and the voices of our children, forever guilty of the nurturing of..prospective soul(s) into the devouring jaws of the streets.”