Setor Donne Novieto - MIASA - Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa

Setor Donne NOVIETO trained as a certified teacher for primary and junior high schools in Ghana in 1996 at the Mount Mary Training College, Somanya. After teaching for four years, he studied at the University of Ghana where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts Honours in French and Spanish.

After completion in 2004, he worked as a Senior Research Assistant at the Department of Modern Languages of the same university until 2006 when he enrolled for his Masters’ studies in Spanish. After this qualification in 2008, he worked as a lecturer at the Department of Modern Languages, University of Ghana from 2009 to 2015.

Setor completed his PhD in Spanish and Latin American Studies at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand from 2015 to 2020. In his doctoral research, Setor looked at some of the theoretical and conceptual issues of Cuban and Ghanaian postcolonial literature. His area of research includes Postcolonial Literature on Conflicts, Democracy and Peace, Nation Building, Social Interaction between Languages, Sociolinguistics and Pragmatics of the Spanish Language.

MIASA Project: The working of the concept of the “engaged writer” and the search for democracy and peace in Ayi Kwei Armah’s Fragments, and Nicolás Guillén’s collection of poetry, West Indies Ltd.

The project seeks to study Armah’s second book, Fragments, and Guillén’s third collection of poetry, West Indies Ltd. through the lens of the engaged writer; particularly as these two writers seek to unravel the socio-political challenges of their countries at the time of these works. These writers also seek to highlight as well as address the issues of conflict with the view to projecting and creating a roadmap and an agenda for sustainable peace, democracy and good governance in Ghana and Cuba through their literary works. The project will benefit from Latin American social and cultural theories, as well as traditional Ghanaian concepts respectively in the analysis of Guillén’s poetry and Armah’s fiction.

Selected publications

Novieto, S. D & Yegblemenawo, S.M. (2023). Seeking Self-Efficacy and Proficiency in the Study Abroad Adventure: The Case of Students from University of Ghana, Legon and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi. Revue Akofena, 08(1). DOI. https://doi.org/10.48734/akofena.n008v1.03.2023
Novieto, S. D & Yegblemenawo, S.M. (2023). Communicating in the New Normal: An examination of discourses surrounding Covid-19 pandemic in Ghana. N. Henaku, G. E. Agbozo, M. Nartey (Eds.) Communicative Perspectives on COVID-19 in Ghana: At the Intersection of Culture, Science, Religion and Politics. Routledge, 134-142. DOI: 10.4324/9781003330042-17
Novieto, S. D. (2022). Postcolonial Disgust or Regenerative Vision?: The Values and Significance of “The Man” in Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born.” Research in African Literatures, 53(2),131-147. muse.jhu.edu/article/884543.
Novieto, S. D. & Asunka, J. (2015). Translation into L2, Key to Mastering the Itsy-Bitsy and Teeny-Weeny Ingredients of a Foreign language’. In J. Dzahene-Quarshie, I. Csajbok-Twerefou & J. Boampong (Eds.), Journeys through the Modern Languages at the University of Ghana. University of Ghana Readers Series, Sub-Sahara Publishers.
Novieto, S. D. & C. Suarez. (2013). Ayi Kwei Armah’s Fragments and the Anonymous writer’s Lazarillo de Tormes: different shades of society but communicating the same ‘pains’ in the 21st century’. Actualizaciones en Comunicación Social, Centro de Lingüística Aplicada.
Novieto, S. D. (2012). Literary Expression Vehicle for Transferring National Feelings, Retracing Personal and National Myths’. In J. Boampong, (Ed.), In and Out of Africa: Exploring Afro-Hispanic, Luso-Brazilian and Latin-American Connections. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Institute:
University of Ghana

Year:
2024/2025