Amma Darko

Amma Darko (born 25 June 1956) is a Ghanaian novelist.

Quotes

… this ministries man, he is not only a bad man and bad husband, he has also got something inside his head. I only hope that he won’t destroy you with it before you too start seeing red with your eyes like I do.
- p. 17

what African man gets angry because his wife was carrying a baby? And the first baby at that.

He was lying on the mattress, face up, looking thoughtfully at the ceiling when I entered. Cool, composed and authoritative, he indicated with a pat of his hand on the space beside him that I should lie down beside him. I did so, more out of apprehension of starting another fight than anything else. Wordlessly, he stripped off my clothes, stripped off his trousers, turned my back to him and entered me. Then he ordered me off the mattress to go and lay on my mat because he wanted to sleep alone.
- p. 22

.....Akobi beat me a lot at home, yes, but somehow I identified beatings like this with home. That African men also beat their wives in Europe somehow didn’t fit into my glorious picture of European life.
- p. 73

At first I didn’t understand, because here, we hear always that African people are hard workers and love work because God made them specially for the hard work of the world…
- p. 99

Why couldn’t I take control of my own life, since after all, I was virtually husbandless and, what did my husband care about a woman’s virtue? If I was sleeping with men and charging them for it, it was me giving myself to them. The body being used and misused belonged to me.
- p. 118

You were green then, Mara. Totally green. And I was also in love with Osey then. And I did what Osey ordered me to do. I was his property then, Mara. I love him. Mara. I really did.
- p. 129

My husband brings me from home to a foreign land and puts me in a brothel to work, and what money I make, he uses to pay the rent on his lover’s apartment, to renovate a house for her in village back home. I came to Gerhardt expecting the worst, but this was even worse than I had conceived of.
- p. 137-138

After all, I was also party to it all even if involuntarily. And I guess that my punishment for it is that I am stuck with Oves for the rest of my life. I have decided to stop thinking about ever going home. I just don’t belong there any longer.
- p. 139

Your life is your road, Mara. God puts you at the start of this road and propels you to walk on, and only He knows where your road will end, but it is the road He choose for you and you must walk it with gratefulness because it’s the best for you.

I have decided to stop thinking about ever going home. I just don’t belong there any longer.

Girls are pressurized to prove their womanhood whether they can adequately care for a child or not. You know the popular saying, don't you? 'You give birth. God will take care of the child' ".

"Before I went there, I knew by all means she would give me food. But this woman gave me more. She hugged me. I was dirty. I smelled bad. But she hugged me...Sometimes I wish to be hugged even if I am smelling of the streets"

"...the nurturing of another prospective soul into the devouring jaws of the street, a life brought forth for the sake of bringing forth"

"...when the seed of a curse finds fertile ground in a human mind, it spreads with the destructive speed of a creeping plant. And while it does, it nurtures superstition, which in turn, eats into all reasoning abilities and the capability of facing responsibility"

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Amma Darko