British Popular Culture in Armah’s The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born

This article considers the first novel of the Ghanaian author Ayi Kwei Armah, The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968, Oxford: Heinemann) in terms of the novel’s references to British popular culture. Particular reference is made to the British comic strip Garth, and theory about comic strips and popular culture is explored through reference to the work of Raymond Williams, John Fiske, George Orwell, and John Chapman. The work of the American scholar Lisa Yaszek is also considered. The comic strip Garth is shown to be representative of a coloniser’s culture, and the strip is seen as inaccessible to one of the characters in the novel. The possibility of moving beyond residual culture and transitioning to a different culture is considered. Matters of class are embedded in the argument; several of the theorists considered addressed the idea of reading from a class-based perspective.