Abena Busia

Abena Busia
Born	Abena Pokua Adompim Busia 1953 (age 70–71) Accra,Ghana
Education	St Anne's College, Oxford St. Antony's College, Oxford
Occupation(s)	Lecturer, writer, poet, feminist, diplomat
Parents	Kofi Abrefa Busia(father) Naa Morkor Busia (mother)
Relatives	Akosua Busia(sister)

Abena Pokua Adompim Busia(born 1953) is a Ghanaian writer, poet, feminist, lecturer anddiplomat.She is a daughter of the former prime minister of Ghana,Kofi Abrefa Busia,and is the sister of actressAkosua Busia.Busia is an associate professor of Literature in English, and of women's and gender studies atRutgers University.She is Ghana's ambassador toBrazil,appointed in 2017,with accreditation to the other 12 republics of South America.

Early life and education

Busia was born inAccra,Ghana, into the Yenfri royal family inWenchiin theBrong-Ahafo Regionof Ghana, toKofi Abrefa Busia,one-time Ghanaian Head of State, and his wife, Naa (Morkor) Busia. She spent her childhood in Ghana as well as in theNetherlandsandMexicobefore relocating toOxford,where her family finally settled.

Busia earned aB.A.degree inEnglish language and literatureatSt Anne's College, Oxford,in 1976, and a D.Phil. insocial anthropologyatSt. Antony's Collegein 1984. She has been an external tutor atRuskin College,the labour relations college affiliated to theUniversity of Oxford,and a visiting lecturer in the Program of African and Afro-American Studies atYale University.She has also won a number of post-doctoral fellowships including an Andrew Mellon Fellowship in the English department ofBryn Mawr College,and an Institute for American Cultures Fellowship at the Center for Afro-American Studies,UCLA.

Career

Busia was co-director of the Women Writing Africa Project (which between 2002 and 2008 published the four-volume Women Writing Africa Series), as well as Professor of English atRutgers Universityand the Chair of the Department of Women's and Gender Studies.

She has also taught at other institutions, among themYaleand theUniversity of Ghana.

She has served as president of the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora and of the African Literature Association, and currently chairs the board of AWDF-USA, sister organization of theAfrican Women's Development Fund(AWDF), the first pan-African foundation to support the work ofwomen's rightsorganisations in Africa.

Writing

Busia has published widely on black women's literature, colonial discourse, and post-colonial studies. Scholarly books she has co-edited includeTheorizing Black Feminisms: The Visionary Pragmatism of Black Women(1993) andBeyond Survival: African Literature and the Search for New Life(1999). In addition, she is the author of two volumes of poetry:Testimonies of Exile(1990) andTraces of Life(2008). Her work is included in such anthologies asDaughters of Africa(ed.Margaret Busby,1992).

Ghanaian diplomat

In July 2017,President Nana Akuffo-Addonamed Abena Busia as Ghana's ambassador toBrazil.She was among 22 other distinguished Ghanaians who were named to head various diplomatic Ghanaian missions in the world.

Selected bibliography

Poetry

• Testimonies of Exile— poetry, illustrated by Akosua Busia (Africa World Press, 1990;ISBN978-0865431614)
• Traces of a Life: A Collection of Elegies and Praise Poems(Ayebia Clarke Publishing, 2008;ISBN978-0955507977)

As editor

• Theorizing Black Feminisms: The Visionary Pragmatism of Black Women,co-editor withStanlie M. James(Routledge, 1993;ISBN978-0415073370)
• Beyond Survival: African Literature and the Search for New Life,co-editor withKofi Anyidohoand Anne Adams (Africa World Press, 1999;ISBN978-0865437098)
• Women Writing Africa: West Africa and Sahel(2005)

Awards and recognition

In March 2011, marking the 100th anniversary ofInternational Women's Day,the AWDF recognised Abena Busia as one of 50 inspirational African feminists, with a public celebration in her honour taking place in June at theNational Theatrein Accra.

She is co-founder and Chair of the Busia Foundation International, a non-government organisation set up in honour ofGhana's former Prime Minister,Kofi Abrefa Busia,the 40th anniversary of whose death was marked by a public memorial lecture on 28 August 2018 at theAccra International Conference Centre.

See also

• Kofi Abrefa Busia
• Akosua Busia
• List of Ghanaian writers