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Ama Ata Aidoo
(1942-)

Active: 1964- in Ghana, Africa

By Femi Nzegwu (Centre for Cross-Cultural Studies, Dakar)

Indexing Data:

  • Active In: Ghana, Africa
  • Born In: Ghana, Africa
  • Activity: Poet, Playwright, Novelist, Story Writer

Life, Works and Times

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Ama Ata Aidoo is undoubtedly one of Africa's finest contemporary literary figures. For the past 40 years her writing has been at the vanguard of post-conquest interrogative and reconstructionary exposition in Africa, following in the footsteps of those female visionaries of an earlier literary generation – Flora Nwapa, Mariama Bâ and Grace Ogot. Born in Abeadzi Kyiakor in Ghana's central region, Aidoo attended Wesley Girls School, Cape Coast, and the University of Ghana at Legon from where she graduated in 1964. This was the same year that she wrote her first play, Dilemma of a Ghost, which was performed at the university by the Student's Theatre. Later that year the play was produced in Lagos and Ibadan (Nigeria) to g

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First published 30 June 2002

Citation: Nzegwu, Femi. "Ama Ata Aidoo". The Literary Encyclopedia. 30 June 2002.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5012, accessed 21 November 2009.]