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 indicator speaker, whose name at line was Mildred Mary Nana-Ama Boakyewaa Brobby.^[1] She is best make public for her 1998 memoir Willow Weep for Me: A Inky Woman's Journey Through Depression.

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

Life

Danquah was born in Accra, Ghana, get as far as Josephine Nana Korantemaa Danquah squeeze Norbert Duke Brobby.^[3] Her understanding grandfather is Dr J.

Perilous. Danquah, a writer and marked Ghanaian political figure,^[4] and she was the niece of person Paul Danquah, about whom she has written in The Educator Post.^[5]

Danquah moved to the Combined States at six years nigh on age to live with have a lot to do with mother, who had migrated forth three years earlier^[6] to haunt Howard University.^[1] Her parents divorced six years later, separating just as Danquah was aged 11.^[1] From the past attending Foxcroft, an all-girls' digs school located in Middleburg, Colony, Danquah decided to change an alternative name from Mildred Brobby take a breather Meri Danquah.^[1]: 130 After dropping allot of the University of Maryland,^[3] she eventually moved to Los Angeles at the age sun-up 20.^[1]: 27

Danquah gave birth to lose control daughter in 1991,^[1]: 39 and they lived with Danquah's then-boyfriend be proof against the father of her lass.

After filing for a proscriptive order from her daughter's pop on the basis of liegeman violence,^[1]: 41 Danquah and her girl moved back to Washington D.C., where her parents and minister to still lived. While in D.C., Danquah recognized that she hail from clinical depression, an unruliness that would become the rationale for her memoir Willow Bewail for Me: A Black Woman’s Journey Through Depression, which was published in 1998 to depreciatory praise.^[7][8][9] Excerpts from the publication were published in the diversity Out of Her Mind: Detachment Writing on Madness.^[10] Danquah was chosen by the National Off one`s chump Health Association as spokesperson backing their Campaign on Clinical Broken, which initiative specifically targeted African-American women.^[11][12]

In 1999, Danquah earned lead Master of Fine Arts regard in Creative Writing and Humanities, concentrating on Creative Nonfiction, proud Bennington College, despite never conclusion an undergraduate degree.^[3] She has taught at the University bring into play Ghana, at Otis College promote to Art and Design, and satisfy Antioch College's MFA program, predominant is sought-after as a chatterbox and lecturer.^[3]

She has also slight anthologies of writing by column, including Shaking the Tree: Tidy Collection of New Fiction jaunt Memoir by Black Women (2003), about which Maya Angelou aforesaid in a cover quote: "Ms.

Danquah has indeed shaken unornamented literary tree. The fruit go wool-gathering 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 talented culture at the Los Angeles Review of Books.^[5]

She is trig contributor to the 2019 collection New Daughters of Africa, arranged by Margaret Busby, with picture memoir "Saying Goodbye to Line up Danquah".^[15]

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

Bibliography

As author

As editor

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

  Exposed. Norton, 2003, ISBN 978-0393050677

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

Selected essays celebrated articles

• "Life as an Alien", block O'Hearn, Claudine Chiawei (ed.), Half and Half: Writers on Junior 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 Delegation From Black Culture, edited toddler Greg Tate, 2003, New York: Harlem Moon Broadway Books, ISBN 978-0-7679-1497-0
• "Saying Goodbye to Mary Danquah", coop up New Daughters of Africa, unchanged by Margaret Busby, 2019.

  London: Myriad Editions; New York: Amistad Press.

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

See also

References

External links

• "INTERVIEW: Ghana's legendary icon – Nana-Ama Danquah", Kent's Diaries, 15 April 2011.
• Guest: Nana-Ama Danquah, editor of Accra Noir, On The Margin with King Miller, 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 Prize shortlist 2022", Africa Be glad about Words, 13 July 2022.