Background
Ama Ata Aidoo (originally Christina Ama Aidoo) was born in 1942 in Abeadzi Kyiakor, in south central Ghana into the family of Nana Yaw Fama, chief of Abeadzi Kyiakor, and Maame Abasema. She grew up in the Fanti royal household.
(It is based on a traditional Ghanaian tale of a daughter ...)
It is based on a traditional Ghanaian tale of a daughter who rejects suitors proposed by her parents, Osam and Badua, and marries a stranger who ultimately is revealed as the devil in disguise. The play is set in the 1870s on the Gold Coast, and tells the story of the heroine Anowa's failed marriage to the slave trader Kofi Ako.
1970
(This story concerns several themes central to Aidoo's wor...)
This story concerns several themes central to Aidoo's works of fiction. It places an educated, Westernized African woman in the context of traditional village life. From this "outsider" perspective, the narrator is able to observe the unfair treatment of women in traditional marriage customs.
1970
(Esi decides to divorce after enduring yet another morning...)
Esi decides to divorce after enduring yet another morning's marital rape. Though her friends and family remain baffled by her decision (after all, he doesn't beat her!), Esi holds fast. When she falls in love with a married manwealthy, and able to arrange a polygamous marriagethe modern woman finds herself trapped in a new set of problems. Witty and compelling, Aidoo's novel, "inaugurates a new realist style in African literature." Esi decides to divorce after enduring yet another morning's marital rape. Though her friends and family remain baffled by her decision (after all, he doesn't beat her!), Esi holds fast. When she falls in love with a married manwealthy, and able to arrange a polygamous marriagethe modern woman finds herself trapped in a new set of problems. Witty and compelling, Aidoo's novel, "inaugurates a new realist style in African literature."
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1558610650/?tag=2022091-20
1993
(Out of Africa with her degree and her all seeing eyes com...)
Out of Africa with her degree and her all seeing eyes comes Sissie. She comes to Europe, to a land of towering mountains and low grey skies and tries to makes sense of it all. What is she doing here? Why aren't the natives friendly? And what will she do when she goes back home? A profound version of the theme of self discovery, this novel explores the thoughts and experiences of a Ghanaian girl on her travels in Europe. It is a highly personal exploration of the conflicts between Africa and Europe, between men and women, and between a complacent acceptance of the status quo and a passionate desire to reform a rotten world.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0582308453/?tag=2022091-20
1994
(In "The Girl Who Can," the irrepressible Ama Ata Aidoo lo...)
In "The Girl Who Can," the irrepressible Ama Ata Aidoo looks at the roles and rules, and the games people find themselves playing, often unwillingly. She analyses African women's struggle to find their rightful place in society. Her stories raise issues of choice and conflict, teasing about the issues with disarming frankness. How do people behave in cross-cultural relationships? In the modern world, where a plastic label identifies us, what is our identity? Will African women be in the driving seat in the twenty-first century? With the zest and humour, Aidoo raises these questions and provides some challenging answers. In this collection of short stories, Aidoo elevates the mundane in women's lives to an intellectual level in an attempt at challenging patriarchal structures and dominance in African society. Written from a child's perspective, Aidoo subverts the traditional beliefs and assumptions about the child's voice. Her inimitable sense of style and eloquence, explores love, marriage and relationships with all the issues they throw up for the contemporary African woman. In doing so, she manages to capture the very essence of womanhood.
2002
(In The Girl Who Can, the irrepressible Ama Ata Aidoo look...)
In The Girl Who Can, the irrepressible Ama Ata Aidoo looks at the roles and rules, and the games people find themselves playing, often unwillingly. She analyses African women's struggle to find their rightful place in society. Her stories raise issues of choice and conflict, teasing about the issues with disarming frankness. How do people behave in cross-cultural relationships? In the modern world, where a plastic label identifies us, what is our identity?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0435910132/?tag=2022091-20
2003
(This radical collection of short stories is a double awar...)
This radical collection of short stories is a double award-winning book aimed at debunking the myth about African women as impoverished victims. The stories deal with challenging themes representing some of the most complex love stories ever published from Africa, ranging from labour pains to burials, teenagers to octogenarians, race-fraught and same-sex relationships, the human heart is out there, bold bleeding and occasionally triumphant.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0954702360/?tag=2022091-20
2007
(Each day has the same number of hours, but they are all d...)
Each day has the same number of hours, but they are all different. That is the lesson in this charming book from award winning Ghanaian children's author, Ama Ata Aidoo. Worldreader presents this e-book in a new series showcasing fiction from Sub-Saharan Africa. Are you a worldreader? Read more about this not-for-profit social enterprise at worldreader.org.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01JMKA1ZC/?tag=2022091-20
2016
(Ama Ata Aidoo is one of the best-known African writers to...)
Ama Ata Aidoo is one of the best-known African writers today. Spanning three decades of work, the poems in this collection address themes of colonialism, independence, motherhood, and gender in intimate, personal ways alongside commentary on broader social issues. After the Ceremonies is arranged in three parts: new and uncollected poems, some of which Aidoo calls “misplaced or downright lost”; selections from Aidoo’s An Angry Letter in January and Other Poems; and selections from Someone Talking to Sometime.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0803296940/?tag=2022091-20
2017
Ama Ata Aidoo (originally Christina Ama Aidoo) was born in 1942 in Abeadzi Kyiakor, in south central Ghana into the family of Nana Yaw Fama, chief of Abeadzi Kyiakor, and Maame Abasema. She grew up in the Fanti royal household.
Her father, an advocate of Western education, sent her to the Wesley Girl's High School in Cape Coast from 1961 to 1964. The headmistress of Wesley Girls' bought her her first typewriter. After leaving high school, she enrolled at the University of Ghana in Legon and received her Bachelor of Arts in English as well as writing her first play, The Dilemma of a Ghost, in 1964. The play was published by Longman the following year, making Aidoo the first published African woman dramatist.
Ama Ata Aidoo began her writing career during her time in the university. She put on her first play, The Dilemma of a Ghost (1965).
The play is about a Ghanaian man, Ato, who returns home from the United States with an African-American wife. He has not consulted his family about the marriage, and the conflict between the two cultures is played out through the characters' interactions. The man himself is torn between his Ghanaian past and his acquired American ideals. The tension between the communal and traditional Ghanaian value system and the individualistic American culture are further played out in the confrontations between Ato's mother and his American wife. At the end of the play, mother and wife reconcile, and thus the dilemma of the title is solved.
Her second play, Anowa (1970), is more masterful. It is an adaptation of a traditional Ghanaian folk-tale. Anowa, the heroine, rejects all suitors provided by her parents and marries for love instead. Her husband, Kofi Ako, proves to have a weak moral character. He responds to her criticism of his decision to keep slaves by treating her cruelly and amassing even more slaves. The parallels between the slaves and wives are developed, and eventually, Anowa realizes that she is truly alone, having rejected her family and her husband, and unable to bear a child. The play ends with Kofi's attempts to banish her and assail her character being thwarted, although her victory is Pyrrhic. She publicly asserts that he is impotent. Kofi Ako commits suicide, unable to bear the shame of having his reputation destroyed. Anowa also kills herself, as she is unable to find meaning in her barren and lonely existence.
Aidoo has written fiction, much of which deals with the tension between Western and African world views, and the relationship between the oppressor and the oppressed. Some critics have complained about her repeated attacks on the West. She is also a poet, and has authored several children's books.
Anowa
(It is based on a traditional Ghanaian tale of a daughter ...)
1970The Girl who Can: And Other Stories
(In "The Girl Who Can," the irrepressible Ama Ata Aidoo lo...)
2002(In The Girl Who Can, the irrepressible Ama Ata Aidoo look...)
2003(This radical collection of short stories is a double awar...)
2007(Esi decides to divorce after enduring yet another morning...)
1993No Sweetness Here
(This story concerns several themes central to Aidoo's wor...)
1970(Out of Africa with her degree and her all seeing eyes com...)
1994(Each day has the same number of hours, but they are all d...)
2016(Ama Ata Aidoo is one of the best-known African writers to...)
2017The Dilemma of a Ghost
1965Little is known about her religious beliefs.
Certainly Aidoo's social-political apprehension transcends a spectrum of issues, among them the circumstances that served to fuel the emigration of African scholars and intellectuals from Ghana and which kept women oblivious to the full extent of their own oppression. In a provocative commentary to George and Scott in 1993 Aidoo said, "I'm published in the West. [And] There is something that makes [me] very uncomfortable about that. The people among whom [I] lived and grew up have no access to [my] products… . So it haunts the African writer …" By her remark she referred to the censorship of female authors in Ghana and elsewhere on the African continent. In 1994, Aidoo joined with others in founding the Women's World Organization for Rights Development and Literature to campaign on behalf of women's rights by means of publishing and other resources. In August 1999, the issue was at the forefront among representatives of that organization who gathered at the International Book Fair in Harare, Zimbabwe. Aidoo joined with others in reiterating their concerns. She was quoted by the Inter Press Service English News Wire in her vocal confirmation of the severity of the crisis. She rebuked a system where, "For African women, the struggle begins with the right to be born as a girl child… to have a whole body …to go to school; the right to be heard."
Quotations:
"Politicians are easy to attack, but frankly, we are all guilty of not meeting the needs of Africa's young people properly."
"For us Africans, literature must serve a purpose: to expose, embarrass, and fight corruption and authoritarianism. It is understandable why the African artist is utilitarian."
"Africa is not fulfilling people's hopes and aspirations. African leaders have not had an agenda that included governing Africa so that people would find their careers, their life, dreams and visions fulfilled here."
"At the age of 15, a teacher had asked me what I wanted to do for a career, and without knowing why or even how I replied that I wanted to be a poet."
Quotes from others about the person
George and Scott: " … because of her own wealthy background … Aidoo spends less time addressing the material co-ordinates of Ghana and… focuses on the cultural dynamics … Aidoo has stressed the importance of artists and intellectuals being accountable, and calls for writers to retain their integrity …"