Essays in Honour of Ama Ata Aidoo at 70: A Reader in African Cultural Studies

These essays pay tribute to Ama Ata Aidoo through a broad spectrum of articles and personal memoirs from  scholars of different generations and from other literary artists. The book is intended to convey the full parameters  of Aidoo’s place as a literary innovator and as an exponent of radical social and cultural thought in Africa and  internationally, especially on issues of African self-consciousness and gender equality. Consisting of over 30  contributions, the collection includes studies of some popular-culture phenomena, which, though not present in any  of Aidoo’s writings, nevertheless reflects social and cultural concerns relevant to her oeuvre. Examples are a study,  by playwright Femi Osofisan of the Nigerian video film industry as it impacts on the survival of live theatre and a  study of the largely negative female images in contemporary Ghanaian popular music. Among the contributions  focusing on Aidoo’s own works, the book includes an article on her essays on African feminism and on African  women writers, as well as a study of how the presence of Fante-language features in her drama, poetry and prose.

A recent interview done especially for this book by the Kenyan writer Micere Mugo—a close associate during the  years when they both lived and taught in Zimbabwe—provides a contemporary account of the septuagenarian’s  reflections, views and still-insurgent commentaries on the issues closest to “Our Sister’s” literary heart.  This important book is a celebration of the work of Ama Ata Aidoo and her continuing commitment to elevate  African writing on the world stage. She is one of Africa’s most courageous writers in her belief that Africans  should tell their own stories in a globalized world that often tends to marginalize Africa.