Product Description

Changes explores the complex world in which the lives of professional working women have changed sharply, but the cultural assumptions of men's lives have not. Witty and compelling, Aidoo's novel, according to Manthia Diawara, "inaugurates a new realist style in African literature."

"Aidoo writes with intense power in a novel that, in examining the role of women in modern African society, also sheds light on women's problems around the globe."-Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Suggested for course use in:
African literature
African studies
Family Studies

Ama Ata Aidoo, one of Ghana's most distinguished writers, is the author of two other works of fiction, Our Sister Killjoy and No Sweetness Here (The Feminist Press), as well as plays, poems, and children's books. Tuzyline Jita Allan is associate professor of English at Baruch College, CUNY.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #181906 in Books
• Published on: 1993-11-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Aidoo ( Our Sister Killjoy or Reflections from a Black-Eyed Squint ) writes with intense power in a novel that, in examining the role of women in modern African society, also sheds light on women's problems around the globe. Esi, a woman living in Accra, Ghana, takes her career as a data analyst for the government seriously. An incident of marital rape, the result of her husband's anger at Esi's independence, leads to their separation. She is attracted to a married man named Ali who offers to make her his second wife. At first the arrangement appeals to Esi--she can make her work a priority--but eventually Ali's constant traveling and the way he puts off coming to see her begins to bother her. Aidoo makes use of different formats. Occasionally she provides an explanation in the form of a poetic note embedded in the text, and there are spurts of conversation in script form. In one such section Esi's mother and grandmother discuss her choice. Esi's no-nonsense grandmother says, "Leave one man, marry another. What is the difference?" Tuzyline Jita Allan, who teaches English at Baruch College, CUNY, provides an afterword that places Aidoo's work in a historical context and helps introduce this remarkable writer. First serial to Ms.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Despite its African setting, Changes mirrors universal feminist conflicts and concerns. Longtime friends and professional women Esi and Opokuya, who have been dealing differently with family issues, make attempts to juggle their many obligations to their husbands, their children, and their careers. Nevertheless, their sexist husbands, who are impervious to the feminist thinking of their wives, remain unsympathetic. Esi finally makes a statement by choosing divorce, career, and a polygamous remarriage--which ultimately becomes an exchange of one set of challenges for another. Prize-winning Ghanaian-born author Aidoo takes a satirical look at modern women and points out similarities in their lives--whether in Africa or anywhere else. Recommended for women's studies as well as general adult fiction collections.
- Ellen R. Cohen, Rockville, Md.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
An informative, if a tad schematic, novel from Ghanaian writer Aidoo (Our Sister Killjoy, etc.--not reviewed) about women's identities and needs in contemporary Africa. The Stunning Esi Sekyi is, in fact, the very model of a modern African woman. She has a postgraduate degree, works for the department of statistics in Accra, and earns more than her schoolmaster husband Oku. And with only one child, she is free to travel to international conferences and advance her career. But African society and African men--despite their admiration of intelligent, educated women--still cling to the old ways. When Oku makes love to Esi against her will (his friends are laughing at him because ``they think I'm not behaving like a man''), Esi calls it ``marital rape''--a concept, she realizes, that African ``society could not possibly have an indigenous word for...[since] sex is something a husband claims from his wife as a right.'' She asks for a divorce, much to her family's dismay, and begins an affair with charismatic businessman Ali Kondey. Meanwhile, an old friend, Opukuya, a married nurse and mother, tries to be supportive, but she's torn between her conventional ideas about marriage and the realization that she envies Esi's freedom. Though Ali is married, he is a Muslin and can have more than one wife. And so he and Esi marry--a curiously old-fashioned decision for an apparently modern woman, since Ali spends more time with his other family than he does with Esi. Finally, the two drift apart, and Esi is left to wonder ``what fashion of loving was she ever going to consider adequate.'' Esi seems more foolish than victimized, but the attitudes of the society portrayed here are real enough--and do add a new dimension to an otherwise familiar story. (First serial to Ms. Magazine) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

Ghanian women and Modernity: Independence?
Modern Ghanaian women suffer daily sacrifices, lifelong barriers to their advancement, and an emerging modernity which has multiplied their duties but not simplified their lives. Changes focuses on a three year period in the lives of Esi Sekyi, Opokuya Dakwa, and Fusena Kondey, three women approaching their mid thirties in Accra, Ghana.
In Changes we can see the evidence of a complex struggle in the name of modernity between African women and society, families, traditions, and their own desires. From the perspectives of Esi, Opokuya, and Fusena, Aidoo shows us how such modern African women view their lives, and with what methods they are willing to fight to improve their lives.
Esi, Opokuya, and to a lesser degree the much-suppressed Fusena, fight against more than just an accumulation of oppressive tradition that favors men. They struggle for appreciation of their talents and for an equal part in guiding their marriages. Esi and Opokuya struggle to build marriages and relationships that allow them to reap their benefits of their individuality and their educations, and exercise their own free wills, without making them overworked, or being labeled mad women and witches. The reaction of their families, husbands and communities to these women reveal modern dilemmas for educated African women.

Aidoo's love story traces Esi's distinctly rebellious and independent path to love and marriage, as contrasted to the more traditional married lives of Opokuya and Fusena.; in doing so, the novel illustrates women challenging a postcolonial African society on all fronts. This front is as diverse as the workplace, in hotel bars, in the kitchen, on the road driving alone in their new cars, in the rural traditional village, and in the bedroom. Despite often finding that lonely independence is untenable, Esi and Opokuya achieve moderate success in their fight. Their resiliency indicates shifting gender roles in Africa, and some compatibility between tradition and these new roles.

I give this book 5 stars because ot is an extremely rich story told frankly and believably. The material even seems politically important (perhaps all novels should try to be so?) in that it addresses real problems facing Africa and does not always provide answers, although it certainly proveds a rich cast of characters attempting to do so.

wow!
"...that is why we do the serious business of living with our heads, and never our hearts"

Ama Ata Aidoo's second novel is the story of a woman discovering herself - trying unsuccessfully to balance her need for independence with her need for attention and love within the 'constraints' of Ghanaian culture.

What she finds is that Ghanaian culture is wise; "Esi, why do you think they took so much trouble with a girl on her wedding day?... She was made much of, because the whole ceremony was a funeral of the self that could have been."

Changes - the love story Ama Ata Aidoo professed she would never write - conveys the clutter of the zongo, the frustrations of working life in Accra, and the disillusionment of love. Peppered with the uncanny wisecracks of African culture: on love; "when we have to count pennies for food for our stomachs... love is nothing", on hypocrisy; "How can anyone go about, eating the heads of cows, and still maintain that he is afraid of eyes?"; Changes is a delightful trance. One of those pleasures that is indefinable but defining.

It is written without fuss in the language that Ghanaians call English - adapted to suit the whims and imaginings of the local mind. Ama Ata Aidoo flows with ease, occasionally returning (for effect) to the drama format with which she is unquestionably comfortable.

Read this or weep!

One of the best books I've ever read!
I read this book in two days! This was a love story but much more. It was a well-written, fascinating book with an ending that I could'nt have predicted. I read somewhere that Ata Ama Aidoo was hesitant to write a love story, well I'm glad she did. I've recommended it to all of my friends!