This document is a time-coded written summary in five-minute increments of an oral history interview. Full transcripts, audio recordings, and other oral history materials are available at the British Library Sound Archive, London, United Kingdom, and at the WLP office in Bethesda, MD. For more information, please consult our Oral History Archive of the Global Women’s Movement Terms of Use. 

About the Interviewee* 

Abena Busia (Ghana/USA) is Chair of the Department of Women's and Gender Studies and Executive Board Member of the Center for African Studies at Rutgers University. She is the current Board Chair of AWDF-USA, the sister organization to the African Women's Development Fund, the first and only pan-African funding source for women-centered programs and organizations and Past President of both the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora and the African Literature Association.

She was co-director and co-editor of the groundbreaking twenty-year Women Writing Africa Project, a multi-volume anthology designed to recognize the history and cultural legacy of African women from all regions of the continent. Professor Busia is co-editor of Theorizing Black Feminisms (1993) and Beyond Survival (1999) and has authored numerous articles and book chapters on topics including black women's writing, colonial discourse and African Diaspora Literature. A celebrated poet, she is the author of two collections, Testimonies of Exile (1990) and Traces of a Life (2008). 

*This brief biography was recorded concurrently with the subject’s interview for the WLP Oral History Archive of the Global Women’s Movement.

About the WLP Oral History Project

The WLP Oral History Archive of the Global Women’s Movement preserves stories and lessons of women’s rights activists from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and South America who have left their mark on the struggle for women’s advancement. We have collected dozens of oral histories from 25 countries, and the project is ongoing. Since 2014, WLP has collaborated with the Sound Archive of the British Library to host the repository.

Read more ABOUT OUR ORAL HISTORY PROJECT.

Read our Oral History Archive of the Global Women’s Movement Terms of Use.