Kofi Awoonor's Tribute

On September 21 2013, Professor Kofi Awoonor passed away in the Westgate attack.

Kofi Awoonor was a literary great of Africa and a child of Ghana. He died at the age of 78 while in the country to attend and speak at Storymoja Hay Festival this year. The Festival was subsequently cancelled in his honour.

This is a poem by Kofi Awoonor.

REDISCOVERY

When our tears are dry on the shore

And the fishermen carry their nets home

And the sea gulls return to Bird Island

And the laughter of the children recedes

At night

There shall still linger here the communion we

Forged

The feast of oneness which we partook of

There shall still be the eternal gate-men

Who will close the cemetery door

And send the late mourners away

It cannot be music we heard that night

That still lingers in the chambers of memory

It is the new chorus of our forgotten

comrades

And the halleluyahs of our second selves….

Find pictures from his tribute below.