Anowa

Anowa is a play by Ghanaian playwright Ama Ata Aidoo published in 1970. It is based on a traditional Ghanaian tale of a daughter who rejects suitors proposed by her parents, Osam and Badua, and marries a stranger who ultimately is revealed as the devil in disguise. The play is set in the 1870s on the Gold Coast, and tells the story of the heroine Anowa's failed marriage to the slave trader Kofi Ako.

The play has a unique trait where a couple, an old man and an old woman, play the role of the Chorus. They present themselves at crucial points in the play and give their own views on the events in the play.

Anowa's attitude of being a modern independent woman angers Kofi Ako. He requests her to be like other normal women. Anowa lives in a hallucinated world and the sorrow of not bearing a child depresses her. Her rich husband, now frustrated with his wife asks her to leave him. Anowa argues with him and finds out that he had lost his ability to bear children and the fault was in him and not in her. This disclosure of the truth drives Kofi Ako to shoot himself and Anowa drowns herself.

Anowa represents the modern woman who likes to take her own decisions and live life as per her choice. She, though a tribal woman, has the traits of a city-bred. Her attitude leads to her destruction.