~Two For The Price of One~

Well today is day two of the birthday blog not having "celebrity" name authors or poets to write about. There was only a handful of names that I could choose from today, so I spent roughly a hour looking into each person and trying to find the most interesting one. While I also enjoyed learning about a man named Steven Saylor, who wrote about historical events (I'm a history nerd), I decided to choose an African writer who had some great quotes, and wrote about touching subjects throughout her career. Please enjoy and sorry for the short blog post. I can't wait to have a historical figure to talk about and dive into for all of you. Hopefully this week sometime I'll have a great poet or author from our distant past? 

Enter professor Ama Ata Aidoo, an author, poet, playwright, academic, and even former Minister of Education for the Ghana government. She was born today in 1940 in Saltpond, Ghana. You might wonder why I chose her if she wasn't born in America? Well have patience because I'm getting there! (JEESH) She worked here in America at Stanford University for creative writing and even taught African studies. 

Most of her work was fiction dealing with Western and African world views and the tension between the two. Most of her stories involve a women who goes against the norms of women roles at their time. She won an award in 1992 for the Commonwealth Writers Prize for the best book in Africa. Even her poems gave her awards as her collection titled "Someone Talking to Sometime" won the Nelson Mandela Prize for Poetry in 1987. 

Some of Her Works:

• The Dilemma of a Ghost
• Anowa
• No Sweetness Here: A Collection of Short Stories
• African Love Stories
• Our Sister Killjoy: or Reflections from a Black-eyed Squint
• Diplomatic Pounds & Other Stories

QUOTES:

• "At the age of 15, a teacher had asked me what I wanted to do for a career, and without knowing why or even how I replied that I wanted to be a poet."
• "For us Africans, literature must serve a purpose: to expose, embarrass, and fight corruption and authoritarianism. IT is understandable why the African artist is utilitarian."
• "People are worms, and even the God who created them is immensely bored with their antics."