In the third section Sissie travels to London, a different sort of place - and standing, as the old colonial home, in a different relationship to her native Ghana. Sissie ultimately can not be the person Marija wants her to be, and the German woman is left behind, disappointed and bored. Marija, however, seems to fall in love with the exotic foreigner, while Sissie is at best amused by the power she wields over Marija.

She showers Sissie with gifts of food, and the two become companions of sorts. Marija is a lonely young Hausfrau whose husband never appears to be home. In the long second section, 'The Plums', a German woman, Marija Sommer, befriends her. She is comfortable in her own skin, and only gradually over the course of her travels does it dawn on her that she is often the only black person in a given place.īut she is not insecure about questions of race, and she is fairly adventurous, in contrast to most of the other foreigners she is grouped together with for her stay in Germany. The first, short one is titled: 'Into a Bad Dream', as Sissie travels to Germany. Our Sister Killjoy is presented in four sections. She recognizes the opportunity, but doesn't overestimate it. The actions and words of others suggest: 'that, somehow, going to Europe was altogether more like a dress rehearsal for a journey to paradise'. The Europeans are eager to impress (or 'make good again') and wine and dine her as soon as they know she is going: as soon as the embassy found out she was the chosen one 'they had come to the campus looking for her in a black Mercedes-Benz'. She is awarded a scholarship to travel to Europe - a big deal in those times (the late 1960s). Our Sister Killjoy is a novel about a Ghanaian student, Sissie.

or Reflections from a Black-Eyed Squintī+ : well-presented novel of an African in Europe.

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Our sister killjoy