AMA ATA AIDOO The life of Ghana’s most celebrated writer.

“Since we met you people 500 years ago look at us, we have given everything and you are still taking. It’s true. I mean where would the whole western world be without Africa? Our cocoa, our timber, our gold, our diamonds, our platinum, our whatever. Everything you have, is us.  I am not saying it, it’s a fact. And in return for all of this what have we got? Nothing! Anti-personal indoctrination against ourselves. If you go and cook your horrible diseases like AIDS you say it is Us. You brought us tuberculosis, we didn’t have this big cough until white people came here in exchange for Africa giving the western world 500 solid years of our people, of our human beings to whack your canes, to dig gold, fish, palm oil everything! In exchange for that we have got nothing, nothing and you know it. You know white folks look upon us like monkeys! It’s true, it is in your literature. Some of your best thinkers have said this about us. They said… lord Burton, people like that… they said we don’t even have the brain of animals. That’s what we’ve got from you people!” A blunt extract from an interview with AmaAta Aidoo epitomizes a true academic.

The renowned Ghanaian author and playwright died Wednesday, 31 May 2023 at the age of 81.

Ama Ata Aidoo was a Ghanaian author, poet, playwright and academic born in 1942, in Abeadzi Kyiakor, Ghana. Prof. AmaAta Aidoo’s contributions to the literary landscape garnered widespread acclaim and numerous accolades throughout her illustrious career. In 1992, she was honored with the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize for Best Book in Africa for her novel “Changes.”

In 2018, she received the esteemed GhanattaAward for Literature, acknowledging her enduring influence on Ghanaian and African literature. Her father opened the first school in her village and that was a strong influence on her. At the age of 15, Ama Ata Aidoodecided that she wanted to be a writer.                                              

She went on and studied literature at the University of Ghana and became a University lecturer. Whilst there, she produced her first play in 1964. She was the minister of education under the Jerry Rawlings Administration in 2000 but resigned after 18 months since she could not make education free.

She was the author of numerous acclaimed works like the ‘Dilemma of a Ghost and Anowa’ in 1965. ‘The girl who can’ in 1997. ‘Diplomatic pounds’ and ‘African love stories’ which were both an anthology of female African writers. ‘No sweetness here’ and many more.

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She was a renowned feminist who depicted and celebrated the condition of African women through her writings. Her works like Our Sister Killjoy, Changes and The Dilemma of a Ghost were a great turning point of women in contemporary Literature.

“Time by itself means nothing, no matter how fast it moves, unless we give it something we value.” 

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