Our Sister Killjoy

Content Warning: This section includes discussions of anti-Black racism.

The text of Our Sister Killjoy is written partly in prose and partly in verse. Most of the prose sections are written in the third person, while the verse sections are narrated in the first person by Sissie. The two styles are blended; most pages contain both poetry and prose, interwoven seamlessly.

Our Sister Killjoy is dedicated to two people: Nanabanyin Tandoh and author Roger Genoud. Ata Ama Aidoo describes the intense grief she felt when she learned of Genoud’s death. She felt that “there was no cloth / strong enough to / hold [her] spilling intestines in” (vi).

The narrator describes, in abstract terms, how frustrating it is to debate politics with a fellow Black person who merely parrots European political ideas instead of thinking critically. Such people, after condescendingly explaining their opinions on “[t]he need for law and order […] The sanctity of the U.N. charter; The population explosion” (6) and more will then dismiss their interlocutor as too young and naïve to be properly informed. 

Sissie is a young Ghanaian woman preparing to travel to Europe. She will be studying and volunteering abroad.