Ama ata aidoo no sweetness here

Ama Ata Aidoo: No Sweetness Here

Megan Behrent, Brown University '97

Ama Ata Aidoo's first collection of short stories entitled No Sweetness Here is a sharp critique of the failure of Independence to actually liberate the majority of people in Ghana, demonstrating the bitter disillusionment that ensues as hopes for liberation are dashed and material conditions remain unchanged and unimproved for the majority of people in the new "post-colonial" Ghana.

Published in , and written over eight years in the period that led up to and immediately followed the military overthrow of the Kwame Nkrumah government in , No Sweetness Here, is in many ways exemplary of the transition from expectation to disillusionment that occurs with the betrayal of ordinary people by the leaders of national liberation struggles, the failure of Independence to live up to its promises and the continuation even after independence of many forms of Western imperialism in the newly founded nations.

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