Quote by Kofi Awoonor: “The sea eats the rocks. Time eats the hills. Nothing is permanent.”

The most solid things in nature — rock, hills — are worn away by forces that work slowly and relentlessly. If stone can be dissolved, nothing human is beyond change or loss. This is not despair; it is an honest reckoning with the nature of all things, inviting us to hold lightly.

Awoonor published Rediscovery in 1964 during Ghana's period of early independence under Kwame Nkrumah. Poets across West Africa were grappling with how to write in English while honouring indigenous oral traditions, and Awoonor's work became a defining example of that creative synthesis.

Ghanaian poet, novelist, and diplomat who drew on the oral traditions of the Ewe people to create a unique voice in African poetry. His 1964 collection Rediscovery is a landmark of Ghanaian literature. He served as Ghana's Ambassador to the United Nations and was killed in the 2013 Westgate shopping mall attack in Nairobi.