One of Africa’s most celebrated authors and playwrights, Ghanaian Ama Ata Aidoo, has died at age 81.
A renowned feminist, Ama depicted and celebrated the condition of African women in works such as The Dilemma of a Ghost, Our Sister Killjoy, and Changes.
She opposed what she described as a “Western perception that the African female is a downtrodden wretch”.
Ama also served as education minister in the early 1980s but resigned when she could not make education free.
In a statement, her family said “our beloved relative and writer” passed away after a short illness, requesting privacy to allow them to grieve.
A university professor, Ata Aidoo won many literary awards, including the 1992 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Changes, a love story about a statistician who divorces her first husband and enters into a polygamist marriage.
Her work, including plays like Anowa, has been read in schools across West Africa, along with the works of other greats like Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe.
