The family of Prof. Ama Ata Aidoo aches to notify everyone of the passing of their cherished relative and author in the early morning hours of Wednesday, May 31, 2023, following a brief illness.

Being one of the most well-known African writers of the 20th and 21st century, Prof. Ama Ata Aidoo gained fame on a global scale.

Biography of Prof. Ata Aidoo

She was born on March 23, 1942, in Ghana’s Central Region at Abeadzi Kyiakor, close to Saltpond. She studied at Wesley Girls’ High School and University of Ghana.

late Prof Ama Ata Aidoo

The author’s work, which was written in English, highlighted the paradoxical situation that modern African women occupy. As a University of Ghana honors student in 1964, Prof. Aidoo started writing seriously.

Her issue play The Dilemma of a Ghost (1965), in which a Ghanaian student returning home introduces his African American wife into the traditional lifestyle and the extended family that he now finds constrictive, brought her early recognition.

In her semi-autobiographical innovative debut book, Our Sister Killjoy; or, Reflections from a Black-Eyed Squint, Aidoo once again expressed her recurring concern with the “been-to” (African educated abroad) (1966).

Ama Ata Aidoo

Prof. Aidoo was awarded a fellowship to study at Stanford University in California. She afterward returned to Cape Coast, Ghana, to teach (1970–1982), and she later accepted a number of temporary academic positions in the US and Kenya.

Her other books

In 1970, she published “No Sweetness Here,” a book of short stories, as well as “Anowa”.

She held the position of Minister of Education of Ghana from 1982 to 1983. From 1970 until Someone Talking to Sometime, a collection of poems, was released in 1985, Aidoo published very little.

Her later works include the children’s book The Eagle and the Chickens (1986),  Birds and Other Poems (1987), the novel Changes: A Love Story (1991), An Angry Letter in January and Other Poems (1992), The Girl Who Can and Other Tales (1997), and Diplomatic Pounds and Other Stories (2012).

Which of her books have you ever read?? comment below.

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