![]() ![]() If you enjoy reading social commentaries then you would love this. No seed grows into a harvest of joy without the planters’s diligent labor of love”. Beyond the light of tears, the passionate intensity of countless orgasm, the future of our children, our own mortality and ancestry awaits our constant vigilance and careful nurturing. It is not enough to sow seeds of human life in quick, repeated reckless ecstasy. ![]() Although it ends with a hopeful resolution for one child, the novel leaves a lasting impression that there is no future for thousands of others.Īnd just as Aniyidoho said, “Faceless is a wake up call. ![]() Amma Darko touches on complex issues interjecting it with light hearted moments which makes reading bearable. I love the narrative style, simple but humorous. For them acting “grown up” is a necessary skill for survival on the streets. We find children speaking, thinking and acting above their age. She highlights the varied responses of the women when it comes to their experiences with men. Fofo is given a second chances at life and her dream is actualized, But what becomes of Odarley, Poison, and the many children living in the streets?ĭarko gives us a very vivid and realistic portrayal of society:The struggles, the survival, the near death experience of living on the streets of Accra, the role of the media, the inefficiency of the police institution, child labor, child trafficking, molestation, irresponsible parenting and superstition. Kabria and Fofo’s path crossed and through the help of her NGO and a radio station the perpetrators are identified. Fofo narrowly escapes being raped by the street lord, poison, but when she is hit with the death of her sister, who is murdered and dumped in another slum, She goes on a quest to seek justice and vengeance. In this heartbreaking novel, Amma Darko gives us an account of the complexities underlying street life in the slums of Accra.ġ4-year old Fofo is forced into the street by her mother to fend for herself whiles her little sister Baby T is sold into prostitution. Even government claims to be doing it’s very best to tackle the issue and yet, the problem not only persist but also seems to be getting intractable. There are countless NGO supposedly working for the interest of street children. ![]() The phenomenon of street Children has become one of the most widely discussed social tragedies of our time. Īnytime I see a child on the street, the first question that comes to mind is what has taken place in that child’s life to bring them to where they are now or to the point of believing that living on the streets is a viable option. To read the rest of my review please visit. (Gender relations has been a theme in many of the recent African novels I’ve read). Kabria is harassed by her demanding children and a bone-idle husband who expects his wife to wait on him even though she is in full time work as well. The scene then shifts abruptly to the middle-class life of Kabria, a good-hearted researcher for MUTE, an NGO which is a repository for alternate stories not found in books. She flees to her friend Odarley where we learn that Poison controls even the shared toilets and that Fofo is constipated because all she’s had to eat is bread. It’s a story of exploitation and neglect replicated in rapidly growing cities in many developing countries from India to Mexico, made more distressing because these children have families.įaceless begins in a slum cynically christened Sodom and Gomorrah with 14-year-old Fofo narrowly escaping rape by Poison, a Street Lord and local thug. It is a story of street children in the chaotic slums of Accra (the capital of Ghana) and although it ends with a hopeful resolution for one child, the novel leaves an indelible impression that there is no future for thousands of others. I discovered it via Celestine’s review at Reading Pleasure but even so I was unprepared for the bleak world it represents with such chilling authenticity. Faceless by Ghanian author Amma Darko, is one of the saddest books I’ve ever read. ![]()
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