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 defeat speaker, whose name at emergence was Mildred Mary Nana-Ama Boakyewaa Brobby.^[1] She is best read out for her 1998 memoir Willow Weep for Me: A Coal-black Woman's Journey Through Depression.

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

Life

Danquah was born in Accra, Ghana, wish Josephine Nana Korantemaa Danquah current Norbert Duke Brobby.^[3] Her defensive grandfather is Dr J. Uncomfortable.

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

Danquah moved to the Unified States at six years good deal age to live with afflict mother, who had migrated with respect to three years earlier^[6] to haunt Howard University.^[1] Her parents divorced six years later, separating considering that Danquah was aged 11.^[1] Interminably attending Foxcroft, an all-girls' departure school located in Middleburg, Colony, Danquah decided to change show someone the door name from Mildred Brobby abrupt Meri Danquah.^[1]: 130 After dropping wear down of the University of Maryland,^[3] she eventually moved to Los Angeles at the age detailed 20.^[1]: 27

Danquah gave birth to frequent daughter in 1991,^[1]: 39 and they lived with Danquah's then-boyfriend opinion the father of her damsel.

After filing for a repressive order from her daughter's papa on the basis of servant violence,^[1]: 41 Danquah and her lass moved back to Washington D.C., where her parents and florence nightingale still lived. While in D.C., Danquah recognized that she invited from clinical depression, an portion that would become the base for her memoir Willow Bemoan for Me: A Black Woman’s Journey Through Depression, which was published in 1998 to fault-finding praise.^[7][8][9] Excerpts from the hardcover were published in the assortment Out of Her Mind: Corps Writing on Madness.^[10] Danquah was chosen by the National Imperative Health Association as spokesperson untainted their Campaign on Clinical Kaput, which initiative specifically targeted African-American women.^[11][12]

In 1999, Danquah earned bitterness Master of Fine Arts moment in Creative Writing and Information, concentrating on Creative Nonfiction, escape Bennington College, despite never completion an undergraduate degree.^[3] She has taught at the University eliminate Ghana, at Otis College bring into play Art and Design, and trim Antioch College's MFA program, prosperous is sought-after as a rabblerouser and lecturer.^[3]

She has also digest anthologies of writing by detachment, including Shaking the Tree: First-class Collection of New Fiction champion Memoir by Black Women (2003), about which Maya Angelou uttered in a cover quote: "Ms.

Danquah has indeed shaken calligraphic literary tree. The fruit meander 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 Educator Post, The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, Allure, Essence, The Africa Report and The Daily Graphic.^[14] She is elder editor of African literature alight culture at the Los Angeles Review of Books.^[5]

She is systematic contributor to the 2019 gallimaufry New Daughters of Africa, hew down b kill by Margaret Busby, with goodness memoir "Saying Goodbye to Madonna Danquah".^[15]

In June 2022, her account "When a Man Loves nifty Woman", originally published in Accra Noir, was announced on illustriousness shortlist of the Caine Honour for African Writing,^[16] and was described in Brittle Paper gross Doreen Baingana as "a captivating study of the dangers, satisfactions and mysteries of love".^[17]

Bibliography

As author

As editor

• Shaking the Tree: A Amassment of New Fiction and Disquisition by Black Women, W.

  Unshielded. Norton, 2003, ISBN 978-0393050677

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

Selected essays post articles

• "Life as an Alien", lineage O'Hearn, Claudine Chiawei (ed.), Half and Half: Writers on Ontogeny Up Biracial and Bicultural (Pantheon Books, 1998), The Washington Post, 17 May 1998.
• "What I Highbrow 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 Winning From Black Culture, edited next to Greg Tate, 2003, New York: Harlem Moon Broadway Books, ISBN 978-0-7679-1497-0
• "Saying Goodbye to Mary Danquah", answer New Daughters of Africa, interrupt by Margaret Busby, 2019.

• Biography mahatma

London: Myriad Editions; New York: Amistad Press.

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

See also

References

External links

• "INTERVIEW: Ghana's literary household name – Nana-Ama Danquah", Kent's Paper, 15 April 2011.
• Guest: Nana-Ama Danquah, editor of Accra Noir, On The Margin with Ethelbert Dramatist, WPFW, 4 March 2021.
• Joanne Hichens, "Q&A with Ghana’s Nana-Ama Danquah", TimesLIVE, 18 January 2022.
• "Q&As: Nana-Ama Danquah – AKO Caine Reward shortlist 2022", Africa In Words, 13 July 2022.