The Other/Missing Side to the Botched Permissions Request Story Characterized in Ayi Kwei Armah's The Eloquence of the Scribes: Veiled Censorship Attempt, Unreasonableness, Inflexibility, and Lack of Magnanimity Writ Large

Abstract

ABSTRACT:Ayi Kwei Armah levels some very serious and unfounded allegations against me in his The Eloquence of the Scribes pertaining to my request for permission to quote from his novels in my critical study of his writing while it was in production at Heinemann's USA station. As my side of the story of that ordeal will reveal, the reasons he gives for denying my petition for permission clearance are puzzling, but one thing is certain: he wants, and quite needlessly so, to place me, an innocent academic, at the center of his stormy royalty disputes with his British publisher.