By Halimah Olamide
The African literary stage has lost an icon with Tuesday’s death of a popular author from Ghana, Ama Ata Aiido. Aiido, The author of Anowa, according to a statement by Ebusuapanyin Kwamena Essandoh Aidoo, on behalf of the family, passed away in the early hours of Wednesday, after a short illness.
“Funeral arrangements would be announced in due course. The Family requests privacy at this difficult moment,” the statement added.
Born March 23, 1942 in Abeadzi Kyiakor, near Saltpond, Gold Coast (now Ghana), Aidoo began to write seriously while an honours student at the University of Ghana (B.A., 1964), according to Encyclopedia Britannica.
With her play, The Dilemma of a Ghost (1965), she won recognition. She had depicted a Ghanaian student returning home with his African American wife into the traditional culture and the extended family that he found restrictive. Aidoo 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.