Ama Ata Aidoo arrived at Brown nearly a month ago from her native Ghana, by way of the University of Cape Town in South Africa, with an unusual appointment. A distinguished African writer whose work has been taught before at the University, Aidoo has just begun a position as visiting professor of Africana studies and creative writing. She will teach one semester-long course a year for five years.
While Providence may seem a far cry from Cape Town, Aidoo is not entirely new to Brown. In addition to giving literary readings on campus, she attended a celebration of her work last spring at the University. This fall, however, she arrived with Visiting Professor George Lamming and Professor John Edgar Wideman as part of a trio of accomplished writers now teaching in the Department of Africana Studies.
According to Professor Anthony Bogues, the department chair, each of the three writers not only brings to Brown a deeper focus in specific aspects of Africana Studies, but also will contribute to the University as a whole. "They are a group of very important writing and literary figures for the world," Bogues said. "They are all world-class."
Aidoo's plays, novels, poems and short stories have been translated into nine languages. Her writing explores gender issues and the post-colonial Africa in which she grew up. Her father was chief of their village in Ghana, but "what does that mean in a colonial African setting?" she asked. "Others make a fuss about it, but we are all the same, all the colonized people."
Aidoo did benefit from her father's emphasis on education - she was one of the first students at the school he founded in their village. "He was the first to tell me if you educate a woman, you educate a nation," she said.
Aidoo realized she wanted to be a writer as a teenager and was first published at age 18 when she won a short-story competition in a national newspaper. Her literary career began in full when her first play was performed shortly after she graduated from college. Since then, she has held teaching positions at various universities, including Brandeis University, Mount Holyoke College and Oberlin College.
"I hardly find time to write when I'm teaching," she said. This fall, her course, AF 158: "Contemporary African Women's Literature," and an upcoming project with Rites and Reason Theater may mean she will have to postpone work on an upcoming novel. Aidoo prefers not to discuss the book on account of her writer's superstition that a work in progress, once talked about, might never be finished.
In the spring, Aidoo will return to Ghana and her other role as executive director of Mbaasem, a foundation to support African women writers and their work.
In the meantime, Aidoo is enjoying Brown. "I thought it was an honor to be invited," she said. "So far it has been wonderful."
