Literature & Ideas
Ama Ata Aidoo
1942 – 2023
Playwright and novelist who wrote the modern African woman into literature
Why they are here
Her plays and novels put the contradictions facing modern African women at the centre of the continent's literature, and she was reading and arguing in public about them for nearly sixty years.
Aidoo announced herself at twenty-three with The Dilemma of a Ghost (1965), a play about a Ghanaian student who returns home with an African American wife and finds his own extended family newly confining. Our Sister Killjoy followed in 1977, turning the gaze around to examine Europe through African eyes.
In 1992 she won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book from Africa for Changes: A Love Story. She also served as Ghana's Minister of Education in 1982 and 1983.
She died on 31 May 2023, aged 81, and was mourned across the continent as one of its most influential literary figures.
In 1992 she won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book from Africa for Changes: A Love Story. She also served as Ghana's Minister of Education in 1982 and 1983.
She died on 31 May 2023, aged 81, and was mourned across the continent as one of its most influential literary figures.
- Britannica — Ama Ata Aidoo
- BlackPast — Ama Ata Aidoo (1942–2023)
- Al Jazeera — Ghanaian writer and feminist Ama Ata Aidoo dies at 81
Spotted something wrong? Tell us and we will check it.