Ferdinand Kwasi Fiawoo

Ferdinand Kwasi Fiawoo (26 December 1891, in Wasuta – 21 July 1969) was a Ghanaian religious minister, playwright and educator, founder of Zion College, the first secondary school in Ghana's Volta Region.

Life Ferdinand Kwasi Fiawoo was the son of John Kpeglo Fiawoo, a self-made businessman who belonged to the royal family of the Awadada Stool of the Anlo state, and his wife Maria Dzatugbui Dadzehoe Agbodzi. Initially discouraged from joining the ministry, he entered commerce with a brother. After visiting Freetown in 1920, he began improving his education with correspondence courses. In 1928 he travelled to the United States and studied at Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, North Carolina. In five years he gained a Bachelor of Arts degree, a Bachelor of Divinity degree, a Master of Theology degree and a certificate in education. While a student, he also wrote his first Ewe drama, Toko Atolia in 1932, which won a prize from the International Institute of African Languages and Culture in London. In 1933 he was ordained an AME Zion Church minister at Gloversville, New York. ), Flora Fiwor Gedza (1951) and Faustina Adzoyo Manyo, née Amedume (1963).

Plays

Toko Atolia(which translates in English as "The fifth landing stage"), Accra: Achimota Press, 1942. (Ewe) German translation by D. Westermann & R. Schober, Berlin, 1937 English translation by the author as The Fifth Landing Stage, London: United Society for Christian Literature, 1943 Tuniese, unpublished MSS., 1945. (One-act play of eight scenes, destroyed in the 1953 Anloga riots.) Newly written version of Tuniese, 1958. (Three acts and seven scenes, in both Ewe and English) Fiayidziehe, 1962 (Ewe; later translated into English)