Ama Ata Aidoo was a Ghanaian poet and writer. She was born in 1942 in the village of Abeadzi Kyiakor on the Gold Coast, the British colony that is now Ghana. Aidoo earned a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Ghana, during which she began to write. She published her first play, The Dilemma of a Ghost, in 1965. In the play, Aidoo explored themes that would remain central to many works throughout her career, including the experience of receiving a foreign education as an African.

Aidoo completed a creative writing fellowship at Stanford University before returning to Ghana to teach English at the University of Ghana in 1969. In 1983, she became the Ghanaian Minister of Education. She aimed to make education free and accessible to everyone in Ghana, a goal common in many post-colonial countries. After 18 months, it became clear that this would not be possible, and she resigned from her position. 

Aidoo lived in Zimbabwe for several years, where she worked on developing curriculum for the Zimbabwean government. She then lived in the UK, the US, and Ghana, working in education in all three countries. Aidoo wrote extensively throughout her career, addressing topics of African identity, feminism, and post-colonial theory, and is often regarded as the leader of the first generation of post-colonial women writers in West Africa, inspiring writers like Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, Tsitsi Dangarembga, and Helen Oyeyemi.