The poiesis of writing culture: Ordained by the Oracle by Asare Konadu as an African ethnographic novel unveiling the Asante’s traditions

Abstract

The paper specifically beams its searchlights on the incident of the ethnographic mode of narration in the crafting of the narrative fiction — Ordained by the Oracle (1969) by the Asare Konadu. The novel is scrutinized as an inventory of Asante customs, moral, social and religious philosophy. It becomes the art of thick descriptions, the intricate interweaving of plots and counterplots. Asare Konadu is labelled here as a journalist-novelist and ethnographer-novelist who has adhered strictly to social ethnographic facts as he pertained to the etched culture. Konadu has selected some Asante ethnographic data (funeral ritual performances, mythology, divination, chieftainship, etc. and woven them into a plot around imaginary Asante hero and heroine through a blurred writing genre—ethnographic fiction encompassing compelling events and useful ethnographic detail which advance the reader’s ability to understand the constrictions of circumstance on characters.