Short stories
Mista Courifer
Adelaide Casely-Hayford · 1960
Synopsis
In Freetown, Mista Courifer, who runs a prosperous coffin business, admires everything that comes from England: he wears English dress and manners, has his son Tomas's suits sent from London, and has secured him a post in the colonial administration, in the hope of making him a perfect English gentleman. But Tomas refuses to resemble an Englishman, dares to stand up to his superior and turns to the clothes of his ancestors, which his father despises.
Context
The story appeared in 1960, the year of its author's death, in An African Treasury, the anthology of African writing compiled by Langston Hughes in New York. It mocks the Anglomania of the Creole bourgeoisie of Freetown, which the author knew from the inside, and sets African dress against the English suit as a sign of dignity, a year before the colony became a state; it is among the texts the author wrote in her last years, along with her memoirs.
Who it is for
A very short story, in English. Its value is as much historical as strictly literary.
Prizes and reception
Its author's best-known text, included in anthologies and study guides of the African short story.
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