SOURCE: Wilentz, Gay. “The Politics of Exile: Ama Ata Aidoo's Our Sister Killjoy.” Studies in Twentieth Century Literature 15, no. 1 (winter 1991): 159-74.

In the following essay, Wilentz asserts that Our Sister Killjoy deconstructs traditional “prescribed theories of exile” and presents an original narrative from the perspective of a female African expatriate.

The term “politics of exile” calls to mind those sufferers who must leave their homeland for political reasons. But there is another aspect of the politics associated with exile—that of the so-called third world colonial who seeks the benefits and opportunities in a European country, perceived as culturally superior, thus avoiding the socio-political situation at home. Ama Ata Aidoo's Our Sister Killjoy: or, Reflections from a Black-Eyed Squint (1979) is a relentless attack on the notions of exile as relief from the societal constraints of national development and freedom to live in a cultural environment suitable for creativity...