Ayesha grew up in Accra and was educated at Mount Holyoke College, Columbia University, and NYU. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Asymptote Magazine, and the Caine Prize Writers' 2010 Anthology. Her debut novel, Harmattan Rain, (Per Ankh Publishers) was nominated for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize in 2010. Her second novel, Saturday's Shadows, was published in English (World Editions) and Dutch (De Geus) in 2015. Ayesha is a 2014 Africa Centre Artists in Residency Award Laureate and Instituto Sacatar Fellow. She was awarded the 2016 Miles Morland Foundation Scholarship for non-fiction. She lives in Senegal.