The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born

By Ayi Kwei Armah,

Book cover of The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born

Book description

A railway freight clerk in Ghana attempts to hold out against the pressures that impel him toward corruption in both his family and his country.

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

When a friend told me about this book, I was immediately taken by the title. Who could resist? The novel reads like a dream; it took me a little while to get situated in time and space but in a deliciously languid way.

I loved the way the author considers the intimate ways that bureaucracy and authoritarianism work themselves into one person’s daily life and the creaky after-effects of British bureaucracy across the former Empire. I appreciated that nothing is idealized here; no one comes out looking pretty.

From Mara's list on understand our unequal world.

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Interested in Ghana, authoritarianism, and the United Kingdom?

Ghana 26 books
Authoritarianism 50 books
The United Kingdom 583 books