Ama Ata Aidoo to be laid to rest mid-July

Graphic Showbiz Showbiz News Jun - 16 - 2023 , 23:05 2 minutes read

The final funeral rites of prominent author and playwright, Ama Ata Aidoo will be held in mid-July from Thursday, July 13 to Sunday, July 16.

This was announced by the family on Wednesday, June 14, when they called on President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo at the Jubilee House to inform him about the final burial arrangements.

“I am happy that the arrangements you have made for her funeral will allow me to attend the laying-in-state.

“Even before you came here, I had made the decision that she should be given a state-assisted burial. She deserves it, and it will give myself and the people of Ghana the opportunity to pay our last respects,” President Akufo-Addo said.

The renowned author, poet, playwright and academic died on Wednesday, May 31 aged 81 after a short illness.

Prof Ama Ata Aidoo received international recognition as one of the most prominent African writers of the 20th and 21st centuries.

She was born on March 23, 1942 at Abeadzi Kyiakor near Saltpond in the Central Region of Ghana.

The late Prof Ama Ata Aidoo attended the Wesley Girls' High School and University of Ghana.

The writer, whose work, written in English, emphasised the paradoxical position of the modern African woman.

Her literary works brought African perspectives to the forefront, challenging existing narratives and reshaping the literary landscape.

Ama Ata Aidoo won early recognition with a problem play, The Dilemma of a Ghost (1965), in which a Ghanaian student returning home brings his African American wife into the traditional culture and the extended family that he now finds restrictive.

Their dilemma reflects Aidoo’s characteristic concern with the “been-to” (African educated abroad), voiced again in her semi-autobiographical experimental first novel, Our Sister Killjoy; or, Reflections from a Black-Eyed Squint (1966).

Prof Ama Ata Aidoo herself won a fellowship to Stanford University in California, returned to teach at Cape Coast, Ghana (1970–82), and subsequently accepted various visiting professorships in the United States and Kenya.

Akosua Adjepong ‘threatens’ CEO of GHAMRO for tarnishing her image