Book 6 of 54: "Ghana Must Go" by Taiye Selasi

About the Author


Born in London to a Nigerian mother and a Ghanaian father, Taiye Selasi has spent a lot of time challenging the idea of what it means to be 'from somewhere'. In her 2014 TED Talk titled "Don't ask where I'm from, ask where I'm a local", she tells the story of how, during her international book tour to promote "Ghana Must Go" she cringed every time she was introduced: 'Taiye Selasi comes from Ghana and Nigeria,' or 'Taiye Selasi comes from England and the States.' This was a lie, she says. Yes, she was born in England and grew up in the United States of America. Her mother was born in England and raised in Nigeria and currently lives in Ghana. Her father was born in Gold Coast, a British colony at the time, raised in what then became Ghana, and has lived for over 30 years in Saudi Arabia. As a result, her introducers also viewed her as 'multi-national', a term Selasi does not like because it immediately makes one think of international corporations.

Nationality, she says, is a human invention based on arbitrary borders that are not as absolute as we like to think. Countries are not fixed points in time and geography; countries are born, develop and some die; and borders and territories expand and contract continuously. The idea of using nationality as a basis for identity, Selasi says, is one that does not make sense to her.

Before the publication of her debut novel, Selasi was perhaps most famous for writing an essay in 2005 seeking to define an identity for Africans whose parents are of different nationalities and cultures and who live and work across the globe titled "Bye-Bye Babar (Or: What is an Afropolitan?)". In the essay, Selasi attempts to 'privilege culture over country', fussing different experiences across the world where one can feel a sense of belonging based on shared rituals and not necessarily on perceived shared geographies.


Ghana Must Go: Ghana

"Ghana Must Go" tells the story of the Sais: a Nigerian-Ghanaian family of six living in America. The parents, Kweku and Fola, leave the African continent 'in pursuit of higher education and happiness abroad'. Kweku becomes a world-class surgeon, the best in his field, and Fola gives up an opportunity to study law at an ivy-league university to raise their four children: first born son Olu, twins Kehinde and Taiwo and 'the baby' Sadie.

Then one day tragedy befalls the family in the form of a grave injustice to Kweku. Ashamed, he abandons his family and returns to Ghana leaving the family to fragment and spiral out to different parts of the world: New York, New England, London and Ghana.

The book opens with Kweku's death, which forces everyone back together to try and heal the wounds of the past.

The title of the book refers to the Nigerian phrase directed at incoming Ghanaian refugees during political unrest in the 1980s. It speaks of xenophobia and it speaks of immigration: both forced and chosen. It speaks of leaving a home you have established with assets and rituals and giving it all up to start afresh elsewhere.

Kweku and Fola have a 'conversation' towards the end of the book which relates back to the title and how it fits into the narrative. Kweku asks himself why he left his family.

"I also left you," Fola says to him. "We did what we knew. It was what we knew. Leaving...We were immigrants. Immigrants leave."

 The narrative comes full circle back to Ghana, to Africa, form where Kweku and Fola left many years ago, where each of the Sais must learn how to 'do their work' in order to heal, so that they can come together again as a family.

My favourite thing about this book is Selasi's command of language. The language of the book is poetic not only in its use of figures of speech but also in the rhythm that it employs.

Consider the following passage from the third part of the novel:

'The day has dawned coolish, deceptively clement, sun covered by clouds, a thick coat of pale gray, with bright whiteness behind it, a threat or a promise, breeze running its fingers through leaves, not yet noon. In thirty or so minutes the clouds will start parting, the leaves will stop moving, the air will stand still; the sun will stop playing demure and come forward; the day will turn muggy, unbearably hot. The weather in December is like this in Ghana: an in-taken breath held until the world spins, trail of tears to the New Year through sopping humidity, the worst of the heat, then the respite of rain.'

If you have not already noticed the rhythm that Selasi establishes, then read the passage again in a different format below:


'The day has dawned coolish, deceptively clement, 
sun covered by clouds, a thick coat of pale gray, 
with bright whiteness behind it, a threat or a promise, 
breeze running its fingers through leaves, not yet noon. 
In thirty or so minutes the clouds will start parting, 
the leaves will stop moving, the air will stand still; 
the sun will stop playing demure and come forward; 
the day will turn muggy, unbearably hot. 
The weather in December is like this in Ghana: 
an in-taken breath held until the world spins, 
trail of tears to the New Year through sopping humidity, 
the worst of the heat, then the respite of rain.'

The fact that the entire book is written like this is a remarkable achievement. Granted, there are parts of the book where the poetic rhythm fails, but one has to conclude that Selasi did this on purpose, as is evident in a reading she did from the book on the tour promote it.

"Ghana Must Go" is a meditation on the ideas of identity that go beyond nationality, something I myself have never considered. I look forward to reading it again and encourage you all to get a copy.

A Black Power Solution to a Bluest Eye problem

"Think about it. Barring Rastafarians, the real ones, religious ones, what kind of black girl grows locks? Black girls who go to predominantly white colleges, that's who. Dreadlocks are black white-girl hair. A Black Power solution to a Bluest Eye  problem: the desire to have long, swinging, ponytail hair. The braids take too long after a while, the extensions. But you still need a hairstyle for running in the rain. Forget the secret benefit from affirmative action; this is the white woman's privilege. Wet hair. Not to give a shit about rain on your blowout. . ." excerpt from 'Ghana Must Go' by Taiye Selasi

I think the politics black hair have not been written enough about. Hair means different things to different people.

To some it matters not whether their hair is long or short, kinky or straight, coarse or soft: hair is just one of those things we all have for practical purposes, like hands or a nose. To others, hair is very political, and to them, how you choose to wear it is a reflection of your beliefs about beauty standards and the oppression of black people.

I know black women who find themselves and others ugly with their natural hair unrelaxed with harmful chemicals. For some of them its not about ugliness as much as it is about having to wake up every morning to do battle with a curly afro: it's just easier to have smoothe, relaxed hair that can be managed easily at the start of the day.

I had a friend once who always got braids a week before exams because she found examination periods such a stressful time. The only way to help relieve the stress of waking up after a long night of studying was the assurance that she got to tie her hair in a ponytail and was ready to go.

I know other black women and girls who see their hair as battle grounds where the ideals of black identity are fiercely debated.

Only last year, we saw girls at a number of former model-C (read: former white) schools in South Africa protesting the rules that governed how they could and could not wear their hair. These young women (and many across the country who had and had not gone through similar experiences) felt that the way these rules were written and enforced targeted anyone who did not have silky, smoothe and straight white-girl hair. These rules were seen as oppressive an unaccommodating of black people in a country where close to 80 % of the population is black.

This was a polarising issue, with some people feeling that as school learners, these young women had to abide by the school rules and their protest was seen as them wanting to do as they pleased in a school environment.

No matter your stance on the hair of black people, this much is clear: we still have a long way to go in terms of the identity politics of hair.

"Ghana Must Go": A jewel of literary achievement

I'm currently reading "Ghana Must Go" by the incomparable Taiye Selasi.

"He wants her to be satisfied." Selasi writes. " He wants this because she can be. She is a woman who can be satisfied.     She is like no woman he's known.

Or like no woman he's loved.
     He isn't sure he ever knew them, or could, that a man can know a woman in the end. So, the women he's loved. Who knew nothing of satisfaction. Who having forgotten what they wanted promptly wanted more. Not greedy. Never greedy. He'd never call his mother greedy, neither Fola nor his daughters (at least not Taiwo, at least not then). They were doers and thinkers and lovers and seekers and givers, but dreamers, most dangerously of all.
     They were dreamer-women
     Very dangerous women.
     Who looked at the world through their wide dreamer-eyes and saw it not as it was, 'brutal, senseless,' etc., but worse, as it might be or might yet become."

This short passage makes me wonder about what it means to find happiness with someone in a relationship when you are a dreamer. How do you take care of  someone who isn't a dreamer? Do you fight with them to become better than they are? Is that worth all that energy? What if they are happy being with who they are and where they are in their life? Will you only ever be happy with another dreamer? Even then, dreaming with someone else can be exhausting!

Before my current relationship, I was single for the longest time (six or seven years) and was never with anyone for more than a week or so. I always accredited it to my knowing exactly what I wanted in a partner (or more accurately, what I did not want) and all potential partners just not making the cut.

After reading this passage in Selasi's book, I identify a little with what she says.

I self-identify as a dreamer, as defined above: I see the world as it should be and work very hard in an effort to make this vision a reality. I stand so firm in my belief of how things should be that I tend to be too hasty in my dismissal of people who disagree. In the past this has included friends, mentors, family members and potential partners.