She served as a research fellow at the Institute of African Studies there, and as a lecturer in English at the University of Cape Coast, where she eventually rose to the position of professor. Career Īfter graduating, Aidoo held a fellowship in creative writing at Stanford University in California, before returning to Ghana in 1969 to teach English at the University of Ghana. The play was published by Longman the following year, making Aidoo the first published African woman dramatist. After high school, she enrolled at the University of Ghana, Legon, where she obtained the degree of Bachelor of Arts in English and also wrote her first play, The Dilemma of a Ghost, in 1964. Education Īidoo attended Wesley Girls' Senior High School in Cape Coast, from 1961 to 1964. This led him to open up the first school in their village and influenced Aidoo to attend Wesley Girls' High School, where she first decided she wanted to be a writer. Her grandfather was murdered by neocolonialists, which brought her father's attention to the importance of educating the children and families of the village on the history and events of the era. She grew up at a time of resurgent British neocolonialism that was taking place in her homeland. She was raised in a Fante royal household, the daughter of Nana Yaw Fama, chief of Abeadzi Kyiakor, and Maame Abasema. Some sources (including Megan Behrent, Brown University, and Africa Who's Who) have stated that she was born on 31 March 1940. She has also lived and taught in the United States, Europe and Zimbabwe.Ĭhristina Ama Ata Aidoo was born on 23 March 1942 in Abeadzi Kyiakor, near Saltpond, in the Central Region of Ghana. In 2000, she established the Mbaasem Foundation to promote and support the work of African women writers.
As a novelist, she won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Changes (1991), She was the Minister of Education in Ghana under the Jerry Rawlings administration.
Her first play, The Dilemma of a Ghost, was published in 1965, making Aidoo the first published African woman dramatist.
With a career spanning more than five decades, she has received international recognition as one of the most prominent African writers of the 20th and 21st centuries. Abeadzi Kyiakor, near Saltpond, Gold Coast (now Ghana)Ĭomparative literature, postcolonial literatureĪma Ata Aidoo (born 23 March 1942) is a Ghanaian author, poet, playwright and academic.
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