Sad news: Widespread shock in Ghana as poet, Kofi Awoonor dies in Kenya terrorist attack

Ghanaian poet and former UN envoy Kofi
Awoonor, 78, was among 59 people killed in
the Westgate mall attack in Kenya, according
to reports from Nairobi.
The Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta also
lost his nephew and the fiancee to the
terror attack Saturday at the Westgate
upscale mall in the nation's capital.
Two Canadians and three Britons have also
been confirmed dead.
With 45 people still missing, the number of
the dead may increase, observers believed.
British Prime Minister David Cameron
condemned the attackers as "sickening and
despicable".
"What we know is that three British
nationals have been killed," Cameron said on
Sunday.
"Because the situation is ongoing, we should
prepare ourselves for further bad news," he
added indicating that the British toll could
rise.
The announcement of Awoonor's death led to
an outpouring of grief in his home country.
President John Dramani Mahama expressed his
"shock" at the news, adding: "Such a sad
twist of fate."
Awoonor's son was also wounded at the
Westgate mall, Ghana's Deputy Information
Minister Felix Kwakye Ofosu said.
Awoonor had been due to appear at the
Storymoja Hay literary festival in Nairobi
on Saturday.
Kwame Dawes, a cousin of Awoonor as well as
a poet who was in Nairobi at the time of the
attack, said Awoonor and his son were not
together when the shooting started.
"I think the son went to pick up something
at the mall. Professor Awoonor was in the
parking garage waiting for him," Dawes, a
professor in the United States who is
editing Awoonor's latest poetry collection,
told AFP by telephone.
"The son was shot while he was inside the
mall. We don't know at what point the
professor was shot," Dawes said.
Awoonor was Ghana's representative to the
United Nations under the presidency of Jerry
Rawlings from 1990 to 1994. He was also
president of the Council of State, an
advisory body to the president, a post he
left earlier this year.
He was most noted for his poetry inspired by
the oral tradition of the Ewe people, to
which he belonged.
Much of his best work was published in
Ghana's immediate post-independence period,
part of which he spent in exile after the
first president and post-colonial icon Kwame
Nkrumah, to whom Awoonor was close, was
overthrown in a coup.
His books included "Rediscovery and Other
Poems", published in 1964.
The announcement of Awoonor's death sparked
widespread shock in Ghana.
While he was head of the Council of State,
Awoonor was often in the press during a
period that included the death of the
sitting president John Atta Mills and the
disputed 2012 election.
Awoonor's death occurred on Nkrumah's birth
anniversary, adding to the sense of grief.
"He straddled many, many, many worlds," said
Esi Sutherland-Addy, an associate professor
at the University of Ghana who knew him
through literary circles.
"He's an elderly gentleman. You would have
thought that such a person would pass away
peacefully. That's what you wish for. This
is just absolutely the last thing that one
would have thought."
Awoonor returned to Ghana in 1975 and was
later arrested and tried over his suspected
involvement in a coup, according to a
biography from the US-based Poetry
Foundation.
He was released after 10 months, and the
foundation said his imprisonment influenced
his book "The House by the Sea".
During his time in the United States in the
early 1970s, Awoonor was chairman of the
comparative literature departure at the
State University of New York at Stony Brook.
He was also Ghana's ambassador to Brazil and
Cuba in the 1980s, the foundation said.
Awoonor was planning to continue writing
essays and poetry, including on his
experience in government, Dawes said.

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