Harare Review of Books

384 pages. Published Feb. 13, 2024 (Europa Editions). Fiction.

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I finally finished this one this month—I’ve been reading it since February—and Reader, I have really complicated feelings about it.

First, the good: this is really powerful writing exploring Ghana’s “Year of Return” through the story of five men who become entangled in shenanigans. Vincent, Scott and Elton have arrived in Accra from the US, and engage Nana as their guide. Nana knows his way around, but he’s a homophobic “Christian” (more accurately, he belongs to a prosperity gospel sect). What Nana doesn’t realise at first is that Vincent and Scott are married. Elton meets Kobby, a local writer, on a gay site, and Kobby joins the group as soon as they arrive, to Nana’s jealousy and disgust. Nana suspects Kobby of all kinds of things, and hates his elite, educated ways. He figures out very quickly that Elton and Kobby are involved. Kobby also suspects Nana of stuff, and is not unaware of Nana’s feelings about him.

So, that’s the basic story. It’s told from two perspectives, those of Nana and Kobby, and I like how clear and distinctive their voices are throughout the book. I also enjoyed the twist that shows that the characters are not what they seem, which all comes out when the group visits the castles as part of their Year of Return tour. Things get surreal: murders happen, there are hauntings, there are rituals, and the whole tone of the book changes—all of which makes for wonderful reading.

But. This book has really, really brutal sex scenes, and they’re very off-putting. I believe the writer meant for them to be, to make their point, but I found them so unsettling that I don’t think I could recommend the book. It’s a pity, because Kobby Ben Ben has lots to say about homophobia in Ghana—something so important and topical right now—and there’s so much advocacy in just telling these stories. So it leaves me feeling very torn, because I know readers like me would be just as put off by those scenes and miss the import of the rest of the message.

As I think about what the book was trying to say to the reader, homophobia in Ghana is only one of the things. Perhaps others are how the Ghanaian government is encouraging foreign investment at the cost of locals; how Black American “returnees” are sometimes dismissive of the locals, of actual Ghanaians, and create separate enclaves—making themselves elites, and even neo-colonisers; and also the position of Ghanaians themselves on the Atlantic slave trade, whether they were complicit, and to what degree. Those, too, are important things this novel attempts to explore—maybe to its detriment, even, as it possibly tries to do too much.

So, yes. Complicated feelings. In some ways Kobby Ben Ben’s No One Dies Yet reminds me of Marechera: the same kind of mind-bending surrealism; the same disregard, really, for the feelings of the reader. That’s a great thing in literature. However, the flip side of it is whether it alienates the reader to the degree that they reject the entire message. That’s the fine line I’m left pondering.

Many thanks to Europa Editions and to Edelweiss for access to a DRC.