Jungle Blue

About the Book

Jungle Blue tells a sad story about a man whose dreams and his destiny move in opposite directions. Born with unique physical challenges, he endeavours to overcome all the odds against him. He succeeds and becomes one of the greatest in his community. After that he sets himself a new and higher goal. Then something happens that casts a dense cloud over his future. A strange circumstance takes away his hope; or put in a less painful language, his hope and his future are put on hold for at least two years. This narration is a proxy account of Jungle Blue’s life given by his servant who has been deported to London for two years. During the two-year period, his servant will study for a qualification that will enable him to return to, and transform his community of origin. Even though, his servant will return after two years, his absence during that time is going to be difficult for him. While in London, his servant becomes the symbol of his master who epitomises the inhabitants of the community he hails from. Through this deported servant of Jungle Blue, the reader is presented with a description of two sets of people: the servant, his master and the community of origin of the two, as one set; and Londoners and the London community within which the servant proxy now lives, as the second set. This gives the novel a dual setting..... ‘the indigenous community of origin of Hope and his master’ and ‘the new community of London’ which is going to be the deportee’s new place of abode. This dual setting is intended to create the premises for effective comparison between two sets of people from two sets of communities with two systems of civilisation that are here and there interposed, juxtaposed and transposed throughout the various phases of the narration. Names of people and places used in the novel, including those of the indigenous communities and; and, also, including the new London community to which Hope is deported are all fictional. No names and no events in the novel relate to any real people and real situations. Any semblances to any real life situations should therefore be seen as merely coincidental and unintended.

About the Author

The author, Mr Otchere Darko, was educated at Konongo-Odumasi Secondary School, where he did both his ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels. He holds a Hospital Administration diploma and a BSc Administration degree; both awarded by the School of Administration of University of Ghana, where he did the diploma in Hospital Administration from 1970 to 1973 and the degree in Business Administration from 1975 and 1977. He worked as a Hospital Administrator within Ghana’s Ministry of Health from 1973 to the end of 1981. In January 1982, following Rawlings’ second coup, he left Ghana to go to Nigeria, where he stayed and taught for nearly five years at Kalabari Girls High School in Buguma. He left Nigeria in August 1986 for United Kingdom, where he has lived ever since. He is heavily involved in charity work and has since 1976 helped several poor and old people in his home town. His hobby has been writing poems and has written a sizable number of them, though none of his poems has yet been submitted for publication, apart from those that were published in REAL KOSS, a magazine which was being published by The Writers Club, of which he was an member for most part of his student days at Konongo Odumasi Secondary School. Active work made it impossible to have time to take writing more seriously. After retiring from full-time employment nearly one year ago, however, he has spend his retirement time to do some writing, trying his hand on prose writing for the first time. Jungle Blue is his first attempt to get published.