Kabu Okai-Davies is an Australia-based Ghanaian poet, playwright and novelist. He studied at University of Ghana, Rutgers-Newark, and NYU School of Continuing Education. Founder and producer, African Globe TheatreWorks, Newark, NJ: 1992 -2005. He moved to Australia in 2006 as a Playwright-In-Residence, Street Theatre and Producer National Multicultural Festival. He studied at Oxford University’s Creative Writing Summer Program and graduated with a Master of Studies at Australian National University; MA Creative Writing and PhD in Communications; University of Canberra. He has two collected works of poetry and completed a memoir, Curfew’s Children and a novel, In Another Man’s Name.
Excerpt:
Monitoring the last remnants of the brains’ hardware before passing into the oblivion of time, I remembered crying. I was at the threshold of death, the final blips, milliseconds of thought in motion, moments before and after death. Everything else became part of my imaginative fiction that lingered on within the realm of ancestral memory, after death uttered its final words: Fire, fire, fire…
The first time the Head of State saw my twin sister, she was on her way to the market. It was a hot day and the sweltering Easter heat scorched the earth. The thin layer of melting tar on the roads felt like we were walking on a floating black river on fire. In the hazy distance, it was easy to see a mirage as if the future was a dream. The streets were over crowed with shoppers, eager to buy whatever they could from the city shops and stalls. The streets were choking with the converging traffic of imported cars at that time of the year. People were clamoring for the remains of the season, bargaining for overseas items and food stuffs, preparing to head out over the weekend to their various villages; to celebrate Easter holidays with their families.
