Prof. Abena Busia honoured

A renowned Ghanaian academic, poet and diplomat, Professor Abena Busia, has been honoured for her work in the literary space.

The honour, conferred on her at the opening ceremony of the All-African Women Poetry Festival (AAWPFestival), held in Accra last Friday, was for her contributions to poetry.

The AAWPFestival is a residency-style pan-African literary festival that brings together poets from different African countries and in the diaspora to interact, network, and participate in workshops and panel conversations.  The goal is to empower African women writers.

As part of the festival, a literary legend, who is a woman who has done phenomenal work in the literary space, was honoured.

This year’s festival, which was on the theme, “Of Memory and Loss,” honoured Professor Abena Busia, whose poetry works included ‘Testimonies of Exile, Traces of a Life and The Mapmakers’.

The event is partly sponsored by the British Council, UNESCO, the Netherlands Embassy in Ghana and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines.

The Director of the festival, Emma Ofosua Donkor, said that although society was built on the backs of its writers, rarely were writers celebrated.

She said they wanted to have a well-cultured society, rooted in its history and heritage and stressed the need to empower women to be better storytellers.

On the selection of Professor Busia as this year’s honouree, she explained that it was to honour her and shed light on her work in the literary space.

The Deputy Head of Mission at the Netherlands Embassy in Ghana, Wendy Van Meel, said if society wanted to change the present or the future, then it needed to consider the past, and that was why it was important to honour the diversity of memories.

She said  her country was committed to strengthening cultural ties with Ghana and fostering meaningful exchange through the creative industry and shared cultural heritage.

British Council

The Art and Cultural Manager of the British Council, Andrews Entsua-Mensah, said the British Council had for the past two years supported the literary space in Ghana through its arts and cultural programmes.

He said they would work with other development organisations such as UNESCO, the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture, and other creatives to promote the literature space in Ghana.

He said literature was one of the art forms to receive support this year after numerous such supports, including the Pa Gya Festival in 2023.

Speaking on behalf of the UNESCO Representative to Ghana, Edmond Moukala, Melody Boateng, citing the 1972 Convention on World Heritage, said UNESCO had long championed the cause of retaining memories, advocated for the right to remember and protect the sacred spaces where memory lived.

Professor Abena Busia paid tribute to the two previous honourees, Professors Ama Ata Aidoo and Efua Sutherland, and her mother, to whom she attributed her sense of what it meant to have a history and customs located in specific places of meaning.

She said their commitment taught her that those who had survived must live in constant remembrance of those in their communities.