LIVE UPDATES
At the age of 81, Professor Ama Ata Aidoo, a well-known playwright, poet, and author from Ghana has passed away.
Aidoo passed away on May 31, 2023, on a Wednesday morning after an accomplished career spanning more than five decades. The family's head, Kwamena Essandoh, stated in a statement:
"The Family of Prof. Ama Ata Aidoo informs the world that our cherished relative and writer died in the early hours of today morning, Wednesday, May 31, 2023, following a brief illness, with deep sadness but in the hope of the resurrection.
"Funeral plans will be revealed in due course. The Family asks for privacy at this trying time."
The Dilemma of a Ghost, Our Sister Killjoy, and Changes are just a few of the works by the acclaimed feminist that illustrate and praise the predicament of African women. She resisted the "Western stereotype that the African woman is a downtrodden wretch."
In the early 1980s, she also served as Ghana's minister of education. However, she resigned when she was unable to make education free.
For her novels, plays, and poetry, Ata received numerous literary honors, including the 1992 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Changes, a love story about a statistician who marries a polygamist after divorcing her first spouse.
Along with the works of other greats like Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe, her works, including plays like Anowa, have been taught in schools all over West Africa. She had a significant impact on the next generation of writers, particularly award-winning Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
In his song Monsters You Made in 2020, Nigerian Afrobeats musician Burna Boy incorporated her forceful denunciation of colonialism and continued exploitation of Africa's resources.
