Osborne Henry Kwesi Brew (27 May 1928 – 30 July 2007) was a

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...

ian

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

and

diplomat A diplomat (from grc, δίπλωμα; romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state or an intergovernmental institution such as the United Nations or the European Union to conduct diplomacy with one or more other states or internati ...

Biography

Brew was born in

Cape Coast Cape Coast is a city, fishing port, and the capital of Cape Coast Metropolitan District and Central Region of Ghana. It is one of the country's most historic cities, a World Heritage Site, home to the Cape Coast Castle, with the Gulf of Guinea ...

, Ghana, to a Fante family in 1928. He was brought up by a British guardian—education officer, K. J. Dickens—after his parents died. He was one of the first graduates from the University College of the Gold Coast in 1951. While still a student, Brew participated in college literary activities and experimented with prose, poetry, and drama. After graduation he won a

British Council The British Council is a British organisation specialising in international cultural and educational opportunities. It works in over 100 countries: promoting a wider knowledge of the United Kingdom and the English language (and the Welsh lan ...

poetry competition in Accra, and his poems appeared in the Ghanaian literary journal ''Okyeame'', as well as several important African anthologies. ''Shadows of Laughter'' (1968), a collection of his best early poems, reveals a thematic interest unusual for an Ghanaian poet: the value of the individual compared with that of society as a whole. In poems such as "The Executioner's Dream", which views with something like horror some of the rituals of traditional Ghanaian society, he suggests that society, in an attempt to purge itself of the ills of life, robs the individual of dignity. ''African Panorama and Other Poems'' (1981) draws upon the sights and sounds of rural and urban Ghana. In his collection ''Return of No Return'' (1995), he pays tribute to the American writer

Maya Angelou Maya Angelou ( ; born Marguerite Annie Johnson; April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014) was an American memoirist, popular poet, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and ...

and to Ghanaians who may have helped reshape his

Eurocentric Eurocentrism (also Eurocentricity or Western-centrism) is a worldview that is centered on Western civilization or a biased view that favors it over non-Western civilizations. The exact scope of Eurocentrism varies from the entire Western world ...

views into Afrocentric ones. Brew was published in ''

Okyeame ''Okyeame'' was a literary magazine founded by the Ghana Society of Writers in the post-Independence era, which saw the rapid rise of a new generation of thinkers, writers and poets in the country. The first issue of ''Okyeame'' appeared in 1960,Ja ...

'', and four of his poems were included in the 1958 anthology '' Voices of Ghana''. His first published collection, ''The Shadows of Laughter'' (1968), was divided into five thematic sections: "Passing Souls" (on death); "Today, We Look at Each Other"; "The Moment of Our Life" (nature); "A Plea for Mercy" (the supernatural); and "Questions of Our Time". His poetry has been characterized as "the poetry of statement and situation".Edwin Thumboo, "Kwesi Brew: the poetry of statement and situation", ''

African Literature Today ''African Literature Today'' (''ALT'') is a journal that was first published in 1968 and is now the oldest international journal of African Literature still publishing. The journal was founded by Eldred Durosimi Jones, and annual volumes were ed ...

'', No. 4, ed. E. S. Jones, London: Heinemann, 1970. Reprinted in R. K. Priete, ed., ''Ghanaian Literature'', New York: Greenwood Press, 1988.

Works

*''The Shadows of Laughter'', London: Longman, 1968 *''African Panorama and Other Poems'', 1981 *''Return of No Return and other poems'', 1995 *''The Clan of the Leopard and other poems'', 1996

References

External links

*Lalage Bown
Obituary: Kwesi Brew
''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', 10 October 2007.
How Poems Work #1 - L. S. Mensah on Kwesi Brew's "The Sea Eats Our Lands"
* Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr

''Modern Ghana'', 18 November 2007. *

Atukwei Okai Atukwei John Okai (15 March 1941 – 13 July 2018) was a Ghanaian poet, cultural activist and academic. He was Secretary-General of the Pan African Writers' Association, and a president of the Ghana Association of Writers. His early work was publi ...

"The World View of the Psyche of a Poet - a Tribute to Mr. Kwesi Brew"

AllAfrica.com AllAfrica is a website that aggregates news produced primarily on the African continent about all areas of African life, politics, issues and culture. It is available in both English and French and produced by AllAfrica Global Media, which has of ...

, 22 October 2007. (Subscription required.) {{DEFAULTSORT:Brew, Kwesi 1928 births 2007 deaths 20th-century Ghanaian poets 20th-century male writers Ghanaian male poets Ghanaian people of Irish descent People from Cape Coast University of Ghana alumni