Accra High School, is in the process of setting up a Writers and Debaters Club in honour of the late Ghanaian poet and academician, Prof. Atukwei Okai.
The late poet was the Secretary-General of the Pan African Writers’ Association(PAWA), and a President of the Ghana Association of Writers (GAW), where his early works were published under the name John Okai.
The Assistant Headmistress, (Domestic), Mrs Monica Botchway Gbogbo, made this revelation at the Lorgoligi Logarithm Conversation which was organised by Values for Life Ghana, in partnership with e-Ananse Library and Ghana Reads Initiative, held at the Accra Metropolitan Head Office, last Friday, to celebrate the celebrate the fallen poet.
Speaking at the event, she said that at the age of 16, the late Prof.Atukwei was a member of Ghana Society of Writers,and most of his poems were published due to his interest in creative writing.
Mrs.Botchway, said the school had decided to establish a writers and Debators club in honour of Prof.Okai, because of his tremendous contribution to African Literature.
According to her, when this was this was established it would inspire generations to aspire to become the next Atukwei Okai.
Prof. Atukwei Okai was born John Atukwei Okai
in Accra, Ghana, on 15th March 1941 and had his elementary education in
Northern Ghana where his father worked as a school headmaster at Gambaga.
He attended Methodist Middle Boys’ School and Accra High School both in Accra,
and in 1961, he got a scholarship from President Kwame Nkrumah’s government to
Moscow, where he earned his Master of Arts in Literature from the Gorky
Literary Institute in 1967.
Ghana’s iconic poet,passed on at the age of 77, at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, Accra, on 13 July 2018, after a short illness, and was survived by his wife, Madam Beatrice Okai and their five daughters.
By Edem Mensah-Tsotorme
