SOURCE: Wilentz, Gay. “Ama Ata Aidoo: The Dilemma of a Ghost.” In Binding Cultures: Black Women Writers in Africa and the Diaspora, pp. 38-57. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992.

In the following essay, Wilentz evaluates the “dilemma” of traditional African versus Western values that Aidoo constructs in The Dilemma of a Ghost.

If you educate a man, you educate an individual. If you educate a woman, you educate a nation.¹

Kwegyir Aggrey

Ama Ata Aidoo, like her sister Ghanian Efua Sutherland, has been extremely active in promoting her culture's traditions through her writing and productions, and her post as Ghana's Minister of Culture and Education. She is one of Africa's most outspoken writers, especially in regard to the position of women, and is author to literary works in all genres: poetry, short stories, plays, and a novel, Our Sister Killjoy (1979). All of Aidoo's work conveys her social vision, her...