Our Sister Killjoy or Reflections from a Black-Eyed Squint was written by Ama Ata Aidoo and published in the year 1977. The protagonist is Sissie, a Ghanaian student who travels to Europe on a scholarship. The narrative is in a prose-verse form depicting the thoughts and encounters of Sissie whose opinion is shaped by her encounter with the Western world and its comparison to her homeland. She also comes across the hypocrisy and corruption of the African elite. The novel not only examines the role of modern African society, but also comes up with the problems of women around the globe.
The novel is divided into four sections. The first is called "Into a Bad Dream" where she travels to Germany as part of a program to send African students to Europe. Her elite hosts took every care to make her comfortable, from the luxurious Mercedes-Benz that comes to pick her up, to lavish dinners and expensive European wine. She meets Sammy, who is her fellow countryman, and whose real name she “did not catch.” Sammy laughs loudly and when not laughing, smiles continuously. Sissie feels he had been placed there to sing praises of the European land. She feels uneasy. She knows that she is the only black person there, though she does not feel insecure or inferior of her identity or race. The section ends with “power to decide/ Who is to live/ Who is to die.” This throws some light on the colonial and the postcolonial aspect of the novel, considering it was power which decided who survived and who died.
The next section is titled "The Plums" where Sissie, working with other students in the international program at a beautiful camp in Bavaria, befriends Marija Sommer, a German woman whose husband is never home. Marija and Sissie become friends. Sissie can see how lonely Marija is, especially when one night Marija tries to seduce Sissie. Sissie does not engage, but does occasionally think about how they’d have a torrid love affair if she, Sissie, were a man.
Marija plucks fresh plums for Sissie every day and showers her with food and other gifts. Sissie compares herself to the rare and luscious plums: “Youthful, knowing you are Rare, Feeling Free and Being Loved." Sissie also gains attention from Marija’s neighbors due to her regular visits. The section ends with Marija expressing her love for Sissie. However, Sissie does not reciprocate it and feels superior because of the power she exerts over Marija. Marija comes to say goodbye to Sissie when she departs the city, bringing with her plums, pastries, and other things to say goodbye. Sissie leaves the town for Munich.
The third section is named "From Our Sister Killjoy." Here Sissie travels to London, knowing it is a place that her countrymen know (or think they know) a lot about and of which they will want to hear. Sissie notices that there are Black men, women, and children everywhere, and they appear wretched. She is distressed to see her own people deserted and poorly clothed, especially women and children in pitiful conditions, dressed up in rags, making desperate but unsuccessful attempts to keep themselves warm in the chilly winters of London. She realizes none of the “been-tos” ever tell the truth of their life here to those at home.
Sissie meets up with her relative Ghanaian self-exile Kunle, who believes that the problems of apartheid will be solved by Western technology. He elucidates his point by talking about the recent story that a "good Christian" white South African doctor used the heart of a Black man for a transplant to keep an old white man alive. When questioned by Sissie and her friend on which hearts were used in earlier attempts at transplants, he answers eagerly, "He must have experimented on the hearts of dogs and cats." Sissie realizes Kunle values the colonizer’s world more than his own and belongs to the category of “been-to” who come home to complain and exploit rather than build a nation and improve the conditions of its material environment. Aidoo emphasizes the dire conditions and necessities which force families to beg for aid and to hope that the prestige associated with being a "been-to" will improve their living conditions. Sissie soon realizes that the land treats animals like humans and vice versa. The section ends with Kunle’s death, his car being burned down to ashes.
The fourth and the final section is titled "A Love Letter," in which Sissie writes this letter to her lover who has decided to remain in exile abroad. The letter is more political in nature than romantic. Sissie is a “killjoy,” who asks her lover and others in exile to come out of their delusions and acknowledge their duties towards their motherland. Sissie is troubled that she cannot speak to her lover in anything but the colonial language, which distances them. She is irritated by the fact that he does not see this as an issue; what he considers a problem is that she is too aggressive, too outspoken, too serious. For Sissie, her desire for this man is in direct opposition to her strength as an African woman.
In this letter, Sissie recounts her meetings with the African self-exiles. She speaks out at an African student union meeting. They spend hours discussing the political situation of Africa but do not see the denial of their services as part of the problem. In the final line of Sissie's letter, she recalls what her lover asked her when they met: "I know everyone calls you Sissie, but what is your name?" We do not know her real name, but she is a messenger of her kin to the land of exiles. She ends her letter as the plane moves towards the West African coast. She decides not to send it. She’ll tell the tales back home.
