Ayesha Harruna Attah

Early years and education

Ayesha Harruna Attah was born in Accra, Ghana, in the 1980s, under a military government, to a mother who was a journalist and father who was a graphic designer. Of her early literary influences Attah has said: "My parents were my first major influences. They ran a literary magazine called Imagine, which had stories about Accra; articles on art, science, film, books; cartoons—which I especially loved. They were (and still are) my heroes. I discovered Toni Morrison when I was thirteen, and I was hooked. I devoured everything she wrote. I remember reading Paradise, and while its meaning completely evaded me then, I was left feeling like it was the most amazing book written and that one day I wanted to write a world full of strong female characters, just like Ms. Morrison had done."

After growing up in Accra she moved to Massachusetts and studied Biochemistry at Mount Holyoke College, and then Columbia University, and she received an MFA in Creative Writing at New York University.

Writing

She has published two novels. Her debut book Harmattan Rain (2009) was written as the result of a fellowship from Per Ankh Publishers — under the mentorship of Ghanaian novelist Ayi Kwei Armah — and TrustAfrica, and was shortlisted for the 2010 Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Africa Region). Her second novel Saturday's Shadows, published by World Editions in 2015, was nominated for the Kwani? Manuscript Project, and has been published in Dutch (De Geus). Her third novel has been announced as One Hundred Wells, dealing with "relationships, desires and struggles in women’s lives in Ghana in the late 19th century during the scramble for Africa".

Attah was a writer-in-residence at the Instituto Sacatar in Bahia, Brazil, and won the Miles Morland Foundation Scholarship in 2016 for a non-fiction writing project.

Harmattan Rain

Harmattan Rain was written in 2009, following the story of three-generation Ghanaian family, including Lizzie-Achiaa, Akua Afriyie and Sugri.

Lizzie-Achiaa was the brave matriarch of their family, who ran off looking for her lover and at the same time pursuing a nursing career. Her rebellious daughter, artist Akua Afriye, strikes out on her own as a single parent in a country rocked by successive coups, and Akua Afriye's only daughter Sugri was a lovely, smart girl who grew up too sheltered then leaves home for university in New York, where she learns that sometimes one can have too much freedom.

Saturday's Shadows

Set in 1990s West Africa, Saturday's Shadows is about "a family that is struggling to maintain its cohesion in the midst of a tenuous political setting", of which it has been said: "Attah proves once again her proficiency as a writer. She demonstrates her dexterity as a writer with the accuracy and lucidity of her character development."

Works

Novels

Essays

Other writing