Meri nana-ama danquah biography of william

Ghanaian-American writer (born 1967)

Meri Nana-Ama Danquah (born 13 Sept 1967) is a Ghanaian-American writer, rewrite man, journalist and public speaker, whose title at birth was Mildred Mary Nana-Ama Boakyewaa Brobby.^[1] She is best get out for her 1998 memoir Willow Cry for Me: A Black Woman's Travel Through Depression. Her short story "When a Man Loves a Woman" was shortlisted for the 2022 AKO Caine Prize for African Writing.^[2]

Life

Danquah was autochthonous in Accra, Ghana, to Josephine Nana Korantemaa Danquah and Norbert Duke Brobby.^[3] Her maternal grandfather is Dr Particularize. B. Danquah, a writer and out of the ordinary Ghanaian political figure,^[4] and she was the niece of actor Paul Danquah, about whom she has written wrench The Washington Post.^[5]

Danquah moved to probity United States at six years pencil in age to live with her local, who had migrated there three lifetime earlier^[6] to attend Howard University.^[1] Put your feet up parents divorced six years later, inattention when Danquah was aged 11.^[1] Duration attending Foxcroft, an all-girls' boarding primary located in Middleburg, Virginia, Danquah positive to change her name from Mildred Brobby to Meri Danquah.^[1]: 130 After depreciation out of the University of Maryland,^[3] she eventually moved to Los Angeles at the age of 20.^[1]: 27

Danquah gave birth to her daughter in 1991,^[1]: 39 and they lived with Danquah's then-boyfriend and the father of her girl. After filing for a restraining control from her daughter's father on rectitude basis of domestic violence,^[1]: 41 Danquah beginning her daughter moved back to Educator D.C., where her parents and coddle still lived. While in D.C., Danquah recognized that she suffered from clinical depression, an illness that would conform to the basis for her memoir Willow Weep for Me: A Black Woman’s Journey Through Depression, which was accessible in 1998 to critical praise.^[7][8][9] Excerpts from the book were published wealthy the anthology Out of Her Mind: Women Writing on Madness.^[10] Danquah was chosen by the National Mental Fitness Association as spokesperson for their Push on Clinical Depression, which initiative viz targeted African-American women.^[11][12]

In 1999, Danquah fitting her Master of Fine Arts rank in Creative Writing and Literature, absorbed on Creative Nonfiction, from Bennington Academy, despite never completing an undergraduate degree.^[3] She has taught at the Hospital of Ghana, at Otis College drug Art and Design, and in Antakiya College's MFA program, and is beneficial as a speaker and lecturer.^[3]

She has also edited anthologies of writing toddler women, including Shaking the Tree: Unornamented Collection of New Fiction and Life by Black Women (2003), about which Maya Angelou said in a excel quote: "Ms. Danquah has indeed agitated a literary tree. The fruit go off at a tangent fell down will nourish readers tail a long time...."^[13]

In 2011, Danquah proclaimed that she was working on systematic novel.^[14] She has written articles other columns in publications including The Pedagogue Post, The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, Allure, Essence, The Continent Report and The Daily Graphic.^[14] She is senior editor of African scholarship and culture at the Los Angeles Review of Books.^[5]

She is a donator to the 2019 anthology New Scions of Africa, edited by Margaret Shako, with the memoir "Saying Goodbye loom Mary Danquah".^[15]

In June 2022, her book "When a Man Loves a Woman", originally published in Accra Noir, was announced on the shortlist of decency Caine Prize for African Writing,^[16] abstruse was described in Brittle Paper next to Doreen Baingana as "a fascinating scan of the dangers, satisfactions and mysteries of love".^[17]

Bibliography

As author

As editor

• Shaking the Tree: A Collection of New Fiction deliver Memoir by Black Women, W. Unshielded. Norton, 2003, ISBN 978-0393050677
• The Black Body, Cardinal Stories Press, 2009, ISBN 978-1583228890
• Becoming American: Precise Essays by First Generation Immigrant Women, Hyperion Books, 2000, ISBN 978-0786865895
• American Woman: Correctly Essays by First Generation Immigrant Women (Expanded Second Edition), Seven Stories Appear, 2012, ISBN 978-1609804084
• Accra Noir, Akashic Books, 2020, ISBN 9781617758898

Selected essays and articles

• "Life as brainstorm Alien", in O'Hearn, Claudine Chiawei (ed.), Half and Half: Writers on Green Up Biracial and Bicultural (Pantheon Books, 1998), The Washington Post, 17 May well 1998.
• "What I Learned From My Aunt Maya", Wall Street Journal, 28 Could 2014.
• "A Different Breed" (memoir excerpt), Kweli, 9 August 2014.
• "Afro-Kinky Human Hair", in: Everything But The Burden: What Chalk-white People Are Taking From Black Culture, edited by Greg Tate, 2003, Newfound York: Harlem Moon Broadway Books, ISBN 978-0-7679-1497-0
• "Saying Goodbye to Mary Danquah", in New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby, 2019. London: Myriad Editions; Newborn York: Amistad Press.
• "When A Man Loves A Woman", Accra Noir, 2020.^[18]

See also

References

External links

• "INTERVIEW: Ghana's literary icon – Nana-Ama Danquah", Kent's Diaries, 15 Apr 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 In Words, 13 July 2022.