Synopsis

“The Knell” follows the story of Kwaku Anane, a 2nd-year international student from Ghana, West Africa who has arrived-after much tribulation-at a college campus in Hennessey, Oklahoma, in the U.S.A. The story opens with him boarding a campus tour bus where he meets Téa, the pretty tour guide he finds immensely attractive. She expresses a keen interest in his African heritage and lineage; which induces a tear in the fabric of his “reality.” No one seems to notice the vivid visions Kwaku begins to have of his famous ancestress, Nana Yaa Asantewaa, the Ashanti warrior queen who fought British colonialism at the turn of the 20th century. And thus, the campus tour of the college’s old buildings bleeds into a history of colonialism in Ghana and the resistance of the Ashanti people to British domination. This blurring of realities continues through the rest of the story until our hero reaches a point-of-no-return. The Knell is part dreamscape, part immigrant narrative, fabulist, and altogether essential viewing.