Cover of Two Thousand Seasons

Two Thousand Seasons

Trans Atlantic and African slave trades are the subject of Armah's Two Thousand Seasons (1973) in which a pluralized communal voice speaks through the history of Africa, its wet and dry seasons, from a period of one thousand years. Arab and European oppressors are portrayed as "predators," "destroyers," and "zombies". The novel is written in allegorical tone, and shifts from autobiographical and realistic details to philosophical pondering, prophesying a new age.

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Set in the era of European slave raiding wars in Africa, known to Europeans as The Enlightenment, the narrative centers on a group of adolescent friends tricked and sold by an African king to European slavers. On the trans-Atlantic voyage, the group organizes a successful shipboard revolt, then returns to the continent to begin the work of their lives — organizing to end the rule of injustice established by European invaders and their African collaborators.

Audience
adult
Length
medium · 206 pages

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Liked Two Thousand Seasons? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked Two Thousand Seasons. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. AMA Shares Africa, Ghana, african
  2. Indaba My Children Shares Africa, african, fiction
  3. Changes: A Love Story Shares Africa, Ghana, african
  4. God's Bits of Wood Shares Africa, african, fiction

“People who read Two Thousand Seasons tend to reach for these next.”

  1. Yurugu: An African-centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior
  2. When Rain Clouds Gather
  3. Harvest of Thorns
  4. Mine Boy

“If you want more of the same (historical fiction about slavery), start with these.”

  1. Cloth Girl
  2. Ghana Must Go
  3. Search Sweet Country
  4. The Housemaid

“If it was the Africa that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. Powder Necklace
  2. The Rebels' Hour
  3. Anthills of the Savannah
  4. When Hoopoes Go to Heaven

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. The Classic Slave Narratives
  2. The Last Slave Market
  3. Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World
  4. The Willie Lynch Letter: And the Making of a Slave