For us Africans, literature must serve a purpose: to expose, embarrass, and fight corruption and authoritarianism.
AMA ATA AIDOOIts a sad moment, really, when parents first become a bit frightened of their children.
More Ama Ata Aidoo Quotes
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Its a sad moment, really, when parents first become a bit frightened of their children.
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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.
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I always wanted to write poetry, even when I was very young.
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The very old certainly do not go back on lunch remains but they do bite back at old conversational topics.
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Life is inspirational; sometimes it comes from the most unlikely places.
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After all, if we look closer into ourselves, shall we not admit that the warmth from other people comes so sweet to us when it comes, because, we always carry with us the knowledge of the cold loneliness of death?
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It is understandable why the African artist is utilitarian.
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O yes, everyone gets lonely some time or other.
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They had always told me that I wrote like a man.
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the best way to sharpen a knife is not to whet one side of it only. And neither can you solve a riddle by considering only one end of it.
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No matter what anybody says, we can’t have it all. Not if you are a woman. Not yet.
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Once an interesting idea or theme occurs to me then I would want to write a poem about it. The rest, frankly, is not difficult.
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Soyinka’s Death at Dawn, Auden’s Musée des Beaux Arts, Stevie Smith’s Not Waving but Drowning and Wislawa Szymborska’s Some People come to mind immediately. But there are plenty, plenty more that I enjoy.
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Ghana is like a lion without a head
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There are powerful forces undermining progress in Africa. But one must never underestimate the power of the people to bring about change.
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