Adieu, Ama Ata Aidoo

ON May 31, foremost Ghanaian author, poet, playwright and short story writer, Ama Ata Aidoo, died aged 81. A statement released by Ebusuapanyin  Kwamena Aidoo, the head of the Nsona family, Ghana, indicated that the distinguished writer who was appointed Professor of English at the University of Cape Coast died after a brief illness. The statement read: “The family of Prof Ama Ata Aidoo with deep sorrow but in the hope of resurrection, informs the general public that our beloved relative and writer passed away in the early hours of Wednesday 31 May, 2023, after a short illness. The family requests privacy at this difficult moment.” The literary world, along with other spectrums of society, has since been mourning her passing and celebrating her landmark achievements.

Aidoo’s passing is indeed the end of an era. She was one of the strongest and most distinctive voices in African literature and in the decolonization movement. Her passion for Africa and anything African was pure and undiluted. She lived, dreamt and celebrated Africa, advocating justice, equity and the dignity of the human person. In a reflection on the relationship between Africa and the colonialists while speaking with a French journalist in 1978, she lamented: “Since we met you people 500 years ago, look at us, we’ve given everything. You are still taking. I mean, where will the whole Western world be without us Africans? Our cocoa, timber, gold, diamond, platinum? Everything you have is us. I am not (just) saying it. And in return for all these, what have we got? Nothing.”

Born in Abeadzi Kyiakor, near Saltpond, Gold Coast (now Ghana) on March 23, 1942, Aidoo was educated at Wesley Girls’ Senior High School (1961-1964) and the University of Ghana, Legon, where she obtained the Bachelor of Arts degree in English language and taught for years. Aidoo started life with a burning desire to be a writer, egged on by a father who opened up a path to the realisation of that dream. According to her, “I  won  a short story competition but learnt about it only when I opened the newspaper that organised it and saw the story had been published in its centre pages and realised that the name of the author was mine. I believe these moments were special for me because I had articulated a dream. It was a major affirmation for me as a writer to see my name in print.” Right from her teenage years into adulthood, Aidoo took the writing vocation with a special kind of passion.

A renowned feminist, Aidoo depicted and celebrated the condition of the African woman in works such as Dilemma of a Ghost, Our Sister Killjoy and Changes, flatly rejecting the “Western perception that the African female is a downtrodden wretch.” The winner of many literary awards, including the 1992 Commonwealth Writers Prize for her book Changes, a love story about a career woman who divorces her first husband and then enters into a polygamous arrangement, Aidoo wrote across literary genres and taught in universities across Africa, Europe and the United States. Her works, including plays like Anowa, were read around the world, and were recommended reading in public examinations for decades. She is perhaps best known for her play Dilemma of a Ghost (1965), the first published work by  a female African playwright, and written while she was an undergraduate at the University of Ghana.

To be sure, Aidoo successfully managed her job as a university professor with her vocation as a writer, making invaluable contributions to the body of literary works on the African continent. Perhaps due to Ghana’s famous matrilineal system of inheritance, her heroes tend to be strong and assertive personalities, a position which she defended by claiming that those were the women she was familiar with. Along with greats such as Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe, Aidoo dominated the terrain of literary works from Africa, especially in the feminist genre. Indeed, in 2000, she floated the Mbaseem Foundation to promote the works of African women writers.

Aidoo served as Secretary for Education under the Jerry Rawlings administration between 1982 and 1983, but lasted only 18 months in office, resigning when she could not achieve her dream of making education free. At some point in time, she was in Zimbabwe to pursue a career in full-time writing, but the desire to live exclusively based on the proceeds from writing invariably petered out. Like many humans, Aidoo eventually succumbed to the grim reaper, but she had lived an impactful life, and could never be forgotten. Good night, Ama Ata Aidoo.

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