From the author of Changes : these stories “of post-independence Ghana in the late 1960s are written beautifully and wisely and with great subtlety” (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi). In this short story collection, the award-winning poet and author of Changes and Our Sister Killjoy explores postcolonial life in Ghana with her characteristic honesty, humor, and insight. A house servant wonders what independence means in a country where indoor plumbing is still reserved for bosses. A brother tracks down his runaway sister only to find she has become a prostitute. In the title story, a bitter divorce turns tragic when the couple’s only child dies of a snake bite. In these and other stories, tradition wrestles with new urban influences as Africans try to sort out their identity in a changing culture, and “even at her gravest, Miss Aidoo writes with a sunny charm” ( The New York Times ).
Author
Ama Ata Aidoo was a Ghanaian author, poet, playwright, politician, and academic. She was Secretary for Education in Ghana from 1982 to 1983 under Jerry Rawlings' PNDC administration. Her first play, The Dilemma of a Ghost, was published in 1965, making Aidoo the first published female African dramatist. As a novelist, she won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize in 1992 with the novel Changes. In 2000, she established the Mbaasem Foundation in Accra to promote and support the work of African women writers. (from Wikipedia)
