AMA ATA AIDOO

Ama Ata Aidoo, playwright, poet, novelist, short story-writer, academic, has been a permanent fixture on the African literary scene for some fifty years now!     

She became the first African woman to publish a play when she brought out The dilemma of a ghost in 1965. Ado's extraordinary literary talent became obvious to the world early on as her early books sparkled with quality.   

        
Aidoo was born in 1942 in Ghana (then Gold Coast) with a rather privileged background. Apparently at school a typewriter was donated to her which fuelled her creative juices. She would win a fellowship to Stanford University California and early on she travelled the world.           

Her confidence at this very early stage of her literary career can be gleaned from her interviews at the time, one famously published in African Writers Talking. Here she reiterates her admiration for Chinua Achebe; and vouchsafes among other things that
she was learning French.       

  

Aidoo would go on to lecture back at home (Ghana) and then at several universities around the world. In America, Europe, Africa (Zimbabwe); and she kept on writing
creatively after her own fashion.   

She was already acknowledged in the literary world for her play, The dilemma of a
ghost; but critics were even more impressed with her "novel", Our Sister killjoy. A brilliant work, Aidoo showcased her eagle-eye for detail, and even sarcasm.     

Indeed some reviewers, critics went overboard with their praise for the book; as witness: "A stunning novel, an adroit, moving pastiche of interwoven
(ideas)...political fulminations, reverie, haunting descriptions...".

Among other celebrated books Armah would publish over the last few decades include Our Sister Killjoy (1977), Someone talking to Sometime (1986), Changes: a love story (1993), Diplomatic pounds and other stories (2012).         

As befits a writer of her immense status many books celebrating the life and work of Ama Ata Aidoo have been published - plus a film documentary. She has garnered
many awards along the line, including the 1992 Commonwealth Writers
Prize.

 

Studies:

The art of Ama Ata Aidoo : polylectics and reading against neocolonialism by Vincent O Odamtten 

Emerging perspectives on Ama Ata Aidoo 

The developing art of Ama Ata Aidoo by Vincent Okpoti Odamtten 

The creative/theoretical in the works of Ama Ata Aidoo by Miriam Comfort Gyimah 

Ama Ata Aidoo's Heart of darkness by Hildegard Hoeller 

Ama Ata Aidoo's orphan ghosts : African literature and aesthetic postmordernity by Thérèse Migraine-George 

About Lovers in Accra : urban intimacy in Ama Ata Aidoo's Changes : a love story by Maria Olaussen 

Folklore, orature, and popular writing : counter-discursive strategies in the work of Ama Ata Aidoo by Judy Lynne Barton