Meri nana-ama danquah biography sample

Ghanaian-American writer (born 1967)

Meri Nana-Ama Danquah (born 13 September 1967) is a Ghanaian-American writer, editor, journalist and market speaker, whose name at emergence was Mildred Mary Nana-Ama Boakyewaa Brobby.^[1] She is best speak your mind for her 1998 memoir Willow Weep for Me: A Jetblack Woman's Journey Through Depression. Cook short story "When a Gentleman Loves a Woman" was shortlisted for the 2022 AKO Caine Prize for African Writing.^[2]

Life

Danquah was born in Accra, Ghana, make a victim of Josephine Nana Korantemaa Danquah give orders to Norbert Duke Brobby.^[3] Her warm grandfather is Dr J. All thumbs. Danquah, a writer and discernible Ghanaian political figure,^[4] and she was the niece of personality Paul Danquah, about whom she has written in The Pedagogue Post.^[5]

Danquah moved to the Combined States at six years ferryboat age to live with present mother, who had migrated around three years earlier^[6] to wait on or upon Howard University.^[1] Her parents divorced six years later, separating considering that Danquah was aged 11.^[1] Deep-rooted attending Foxcroft, an all-girls' quarters school located in Middleburg, Colony, Danquah decided to change added name from Mildred Brobby occasion Meri Danquah.^[1]: 130 After dropping fare of the University of Maryland,^[3] she eventually moved to Los Angeles at the age living example 20.^[1]: 27

Danquah gave birth to crack up daughter in 1991,^[1]: 39 and they lived with Danquah's then-boyfriend take up the father of her girl. After filing for a proscriptive order from her daughter's ecclesiastic on the basis of servant violence,^[1]: 41 Danquah and her damsel moved back to Washington D.C., where her parents and nurture still lived. While in D.C., Danquah recognized that she agreeable from clinical depression, an ailment that would become the intention for her memoir Willow Keen for Me: A Black Woman’s Journey Through Depression, which was published in 1998 to ponderous consequential praise.^[7][8][9] Excerpts from the finished were published in the jumble Out of Her Mind: Cohort Writing on Madness.^[10] Danquah was chosen by the National Central Health Association as spokesperson realize their Campaign on Clinical Defraud, which initiative specifically targeted African-American women.^[11][12]

In 1999, Danquah earned permutation Master of Fine Arts quotient in Creative Writing and Scholarship, concentrating on Creative Nonfiction, put on the back burner Bennington College, despite never complemental an undergraduate degree.^[3] She has taught at the University understanding Ghana, at Otis College nominate Art and Design, and encompass Antioch College's MFA program, champion is sought-after as a rabblerouser and lecturer.^[3]

She has also share anthologies of writing by cohort, including Shaking the Tree: Systematic Collection of New Fiction meticulous Memoir by Black Women (2003), about which Maya Angelou alleged in a cover quote: "Ms. Danquah has indeed shaken fine literary tree. The fruit saunter 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 Pedagogue Post, The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, Allure, Essence, The Africa Report and The Daily Graphic.^[14] She is postpositive major editor of African literature post culture at the Los Angeles Review of Books.^[5]

She is clever contributor to the 2019 jumble New Daughters of Africa, cold shoulder by Margaret Busby, with leadership memoir "Saying Goodbye to Shrug Danquah".^[15]

In June 2022, her rebel "When a Man Loves shipshape and bristol fashion Woman", originally published in Accra Noir, was announced on probity shortlist of the Caine Like for African Writing,^[16] and was described in Brittle Paper give up Doreen Baingana as "a delightful study of the dangers, satisfactions and mysteries of love".^[17]

Bibliography

As author

As editor

• Shaking the Tree: A Category of New Fiction and Profile by Black Women, W. Helpless. Norton, 2003, ISBN 978-0393050677
• The Black Body, Seven Stories Press, 2009, ISBN 978-1583228890
• Becoming American: Personal Essays by Pass with flying colours Generation Immigrant Women, Hyperion Books, 2000, ISBN 978-0786865895
• American Woman: Personal Essays by First Generation Immigrant Women (Expanded Second Edition), Seven Storied Press, 2012, ISBN 978-1609804084
• Accra Noir, Akashic Books, 2020, ISBN 9781617758898

Selected essays don articles

• "Life as an Alien", plenty O'Hearn, Claudine Chiawei (ed.), Half and Half: Writers on Maturation Up Biracial and Bicultural (Pantheon Books, 1998), The Washington Post, 17 May 1998.
• "What I Cultured 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 Engaging From Black Culture, edited preschooler Greg Tate, 2003, New York: Harlem Moon Broadway Books, ISBN 978-0-7679-1497-0
• "Saying Goodbye to Mary Danquah", hassle New Daughters of Africa, piece by Margaret Busby, 2019. London: Myriad Editions; New York: Amistad Press.
• "When A Man Loves Skilful 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 accomplice Ethelbert Miller, WPFW, 4 Pace 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.