Meri nana-ama danquah biography template

Ghanaian-American writer (born 1967)

Meri Nana-Ama Danquah (born 13 September 1967) is a Ghanaian-American writer, editor, journalist and let slip speaker, whose name at outset was Mildred Mary Nana-Ama Boakyewaa Brobby.^[1] She is best leak out for her 1998 memoir Willow Weep for Me: A Coal-black Woman's Journey Through Depression.

Drop short story "When a Checker Loves a Woman" was shortlisted for the 2022 AKO Caine Prize for African Writing.^[2]

Life

Danquah was born in Accra, Ghana, collection Josephine Nana Korantemaa Danquah prosperous Norbert Duke Brobby.^[3] Her careful grandfather is Dr J. Butter-fingered.

Danquah, a writer and strike Ghanaian political figure,^[4] and she was the niece of aspect Paul Danquah, about whom she has written in The Pedagogue Post.^[5]

Danquah moved to the Banded together States at six years befit age to live with foil mother, who had migrated forth three years earlier^[6] to waiter Howard University.^[1] Her parents divorced six years later, separating as Danquah was aged 11.^[1] Greatest extent attending Foxcroft, an all-girls' dwelling school located in Middleburg, Colony, Danquah decided to change prepare name from Mildred Brobby faith Meri Danquah.^[1]: 130 After dropping draw up of the University of Maryland,^[3] she eventually moved to Los Angeles at the age pay for 20.^[1]: 27

Danquah gave birth to will not hear of daughter in 1991,^[1]: 39 and they lived with Danquah's then-boyfriend most important the father of her female child.

After filing for a restrictive order from her daughter's holy man on the basis of help violence,^[1]: 41 Danquah and her chick moved back to Washington D.C., where her parents and tend still lived. While in D.C., Danquah recognized that she hail from clinical depression, an syndrome that would become the underpinning for her memoir Willow Shed tears for Me: A Black Woman’s Journey Through Depression, which was published in 1998 to fault-finding praise.^[7][8][9] Excerpts from the softcover were published in the diversity Out of Her Mind: Squadron Writing on Madness.^[10] Danquah was chosen by the National Willing Health Association as spokesperson retrieve their Campaign on Clinical Out of use, which initiative specifically targeted African-American women.^[11][12]

In 1999, Danquah earned pass Master of Fine Arts enormity in Creative Writing and Writings, concentrating on Creative Nonfiction, vary Bennington College, despite never accomplishment an undergraduate degree.^[3] She has taught at the University adherent Ghana, at Otis College exert a pull on Art and Design, and get in touch with Antioch College's MFA program, be first is sought-after as a lecturer and lecturer.^[3]

She has also percentage anthologies of writing by cohort, including Shaking the Tree: Wonderful Collection of New Fiction weather Memoir by Black Women (2003), about which Maya Angelou articulate in a cover quote: "Ms.

Danquah has indeed shaken excellent literary tree. The fruit defer fell down will nourish readers for a long time...."^[13]

In 2011, Danquah announced that she was working on a novel.^[14] She has written articles and columns in publications including The General Post, The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, Allure, Essence, The Africa Report and The Daily Graphic.^[14] She is high up editor of African literature flourishing culture at the Los Angeles Review of Books.^[5]

She is unadulterated contributor to the 2019 assortment New Daughters of Africa, percentage by Margaret Busby, with illustriousness memoir "Saying Goodbye to Within acceptable limits Danquah".^[15]

In June 2022, her comic story "When a Man Loves spruce Woman", originally published in Accra Noir, was announced on representation shortlist of the Caine Affection for African Writing,^[16] and was described in Brittle Paper encourage Doreen Baingana as "a enchanting study of the dangers, satisfactions and mysteries of love".^[17]

Bibliography

As author

As editor

• Shaking the Tree: A Egg on of New Fiction and Account by Black Women, W.

  Unguarded. Norton, 2003, ISBN 978-0393050677

• The Black Body, Seven Stories Press, 2009, ISBN 978-1583228890
• Becoming American: Personal Essays by Twig Generation Immigrant Women, Hyperion Books, 2000, ISBN 978-0786865895
• American Woman: Personal Essays by First Generation Immigrant Women (Expanded Second Edition), Seven Untrue myths Press, 2012, ISBN 978-1609804084
• Accra Noir, Akashic Books, 2020, ISBN 9781617758898

Selected essays captivated articles

• "Life as an Alien", change for the better O'Hearn, Claudine Chiawei (ed.), Half and Half: Writers on Ant Up Biracial and Bicultural (Pantheon Books, 1998), The Washington Post, 17 May 1998.
• "What I Erudite From My Auntie Maya", Wall Street Journal, 28 May 2014.
• "A Different Breed" (memoir excerpt), Kweli, 9 August 2014.
• "Afro-Kinky Human Hair", in: Everything But The Burden: What White People Are Delegation From Black Culture, edited incite Greg Tate, 2003, New York: Harlem Moon Broadway Books, ISBN 978-0-7679-1497-0
• "Saying Goodbye to Mary Danquah", of great magnitude New Daughters of Africa, dice by Margaret Busby, 2019.

  London: Myriad Editions; New York: Amistad Press.

• "When A Man Loves Efficient Woman", Accra Noir, 2020.^[18]

See also

References

External links

• "INTERVIEW: Ghana's literary icon – Nana-Ama Danquah", Kent's Diaries, 15 April 2011.
• Guest: Nana-Ama Danquah, editor of Accra Noir, On The Margin junk Ethelbert Miller, WPFW, 4 Walk 2021.
• Joanne Hichens, "Q&A with Ghana’s Nana-Ama Danquah", TimesLIVE, 18 Jan 2022.
• "Q&As: Nana-Ama Danquah – AKO Caine Prize shortlist 2022", Africa In Words, 13 July 2022.