Unpacking colonial legacy and identity in Our Sister Killjoy: A critical exploration of postcolonial perspectives and cultural resistance

This paper examines Ama Ata Aidoo’s Our Sister Killjoy as a critique of the colonial legacy, perspectives, and relationships. The main argument centers on critiquing issues of migration, diaspora, language, and identity, given their significance in maintaining and perpetuating the colonial existence in Africa. The novel introduces a young woman from Ghana, named Sissie, who is on a scholarship to study in Europe, only to recognize the superficiality and materialism of the West, with which many African expatriates she meets abroad become increasingly disillusioned and lost in their absorption of Western civilization. Aidoo argues that the act of decolonization failed to achieve true independence in the African continent and did little to undermine and remove the power and presence of the West in its former colonies. She claims that this new situation makes the colonial influence and existence stronger and more effective even without any military intervention. The paper, however, employs a theoretical and interpretive methodology, mainly informed by Edward Said and Frantz Fanon, to provide penetrating insights into the novel’s representation of the postcolonial character, its exposure of colonial legacies, and the dilemmas of identity, language, and migration facing African society in the era following its independence.