The Dilemma of a Ghost [1] is a play by Ghanaian writer Ama Ata Aidoo that was first performed in March 1964 for three nights at the Open Air Theatre of the University of Ghana, Legon, where the author was in her final year of studies, a few months away from graduating.
[5] It was subsequently published in an edition with Aidoo's second play, Anowa (1970), both works dealing with the differences between Western culture and African traditions.
[6] A domestic satire, The Dilemma of a Ghost concerns a Ghanaian student returning from education abroad with his Black American wife, and her struggle coming to terms with her cultural past in her new African home.
The drama centers on the problems of childbearing, infidelity, and exogamy that arise when Ato Yawson, the protagonist, returns to Ghana with an Afro-American wife, Eulalie Rush.
The ideological and stereotypical assumptions of both Eulalie and her new in-laws give rise to the seemingly irreconcilable encounter between the West (the United States) and Africa (Ghana).