USA Africa Dialogue Series - Anthology for Ama Ata Aidoo and Soyinka’s Fiftieth Book.

Anthology for Ama Ata Aidoo and Soyinka's Fiftieth Book

Ivor Agyeman-Duah

 

A new collection of short stories from eight African countries and by some of their leading writers', is now published. Between the Generations- An Anthology for Ama Ata Aidoo at 80 by Vidya Bookstore, is dedicated to the distinguished Ghanaian playwright and poet of among others, The Dilemma of a Ghost, Changes, Our Sister Killjoy. Described as 'international affairs through fiction', the 230-page collection according to its editor Ivor Agyeman-Duah, looks at issues of wealth and inequality, immigration, sisterhood and gardening, love lost and regained and other contemporary issues of Africa in the world.

The book which was to be launched at the British Council in Accra by the Nobel Laureate in Literature, Professor Wole Soyinka was postponed due to the Coronavirus situation. It was also to see the presentation of Soyinka's fiftieth book- Beyond Aesthetics- Use, Abuse and Dissonance in African Art Traditions (published by Yale University Press and in Africa by Bookcraft in Ibadan) a work on his art collection.

Between the Generations which has a lead story, Aleppo by Ama Ata Aidoo, has eleven others by contemporary writers including Nigerian novelists, Sefi Atta and Ogochukwu Promise; South African novelist of, The Cry of Winnie Mandela Njabulo S. Ndebele; the award-winning Senegalese novelist, Boubacar Boris Diop; Ghanaian novelists, Ayesha Harruna Attah, Martin Egblewogbe, Gheysika Adombire Agambila and Bisi Adjapon and from Rwanda and Cameroon, Louise Umutoni and Ray Ndebi respectively.

This collection, preceded by two other internationally well-received anthologies- All the Good Things Around Us and The Gods Who Send Us Gifts has established, according to Vidya Bookstore, Agyeman-Duah's firm grip on African literary affairs and anthology editing. Apart from co-editing with the University of Oxford's Lucy Newlyn of, May Their Shadows Never Shrink- Wole Soyinka and the Oxford Professorship of Poetry, Agyeman-Duah's, Shepherds of New Dawn- African Literature and Its Elders is published by Caroline Academic Press in North Carolina in 2020.