THE INTERSECTION OF POLITICS AND LITERATURE IN GHANA IN THE CONTEXT OF INDEPENDENCE AND NATION BUILDING

‘This study examines the intersection of literature and politics in post-independence Ghana through a case study of three symbolic works: Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968), Adwoa Badoe’s Aluta, and Armah’s The Resolutionaries (2013). Read together, these texts illuminate how Ghana’s nation-building project has been imagined, contested and refigured across different historical moments, genres and geopolitical intensities. The analysis foregrounds literature as a critical practice that both mirrors and wounds the political body, offering ethical evaluation, political critique and imaginative horizons for collective action. Methodologically, the study employs literary review and intertextual analysis anchored in postcolonial theory, Afrocentric theory and ecocritical theory to trace how literature channels political critique into practical questions of governance, education and citizenship. The findings contribute to scholarship on African literature and political thought by foregrounding Aluta as a productive trial for understanding literature’s role in shaping, critiquing and potentially guiding national projects beyond independence. Collectively, these works demonstrate that literature remains a vital instrument in Ghana’s ongoing nation-building project, capable of diagnosing pathologies, inspiring ethical commitments, and imagining transformative political futures.