Meri Nana-Ama Danquah (nee Mildred Mary Nana-Ama Boakyewaa Danquah Brobby) was born in Accra, Ghana on September 13, 1967 at Korle-bu Hospital to Josephine Nana Korantemaa Danquah and Norbert Duke Brobby. Danquah's grandfather, Dr. J.B. Danquah, was one of the founding fathers of Ghana [In fact, he is credited with giving Ghana its name].

Danquah immigrated to the United States in 1973, at the age of six. She grew up in Takoma Park, Maryland, where she attended the local public schools (Rolling Terrace, Oak View, Takoma Park Junior High). For her freshman and sophomore years, Danquah attended Foxcroft, an all-girls boarding school in Middleburg, Virgina. She completed her junior and senior years of high school at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Danquah briefly attended the University of Maryland before dropping out to move with her then-boyfriend to Richmond, Virginia. After a few months in Richmond, she left and relocated, on her own, to Los Angeles to pursue a career in acting and writing. Her daughter, Korama Afua, was born in 1991.

In addition to her own books, Danquah has also ghostwritten books and dozens of book proposals for celebrities and other high-profile clients.

Though she never formally completed her undergraduate degree, in 1999 Danquah earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing and Literature (genre of concentration-- Creative Nonfiction) from Bennington College. She has taught at the University of Ghana--in the Department of English and in the graduate School of Communication Studies--and at Otis College of Art and Science, and in Antioch College's MFA program. She is a highly sought-after speaker.

 

American Woman: Personal Essays by First Generation Immigrant Women
Click to order via Amazon

Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Seven Stories Press (August 7, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1609804082
ISBN-13: 978-1609804084
Shipping Weight: 13 ounces

Is it possible to enter into a new place without surrendering your old self and all that defines it? Having immigrated to the United States at all stages of life and from countries around the world, the women in this extraordinary collection explore this question of definition and language: the language of longing, of romance, of estrangement. Containing additional essays since it was first published in 2000, American Woman holds a renewed urgency after a long decade of walls and wars, and speaks to all our engaged citizenry with quiet wisdom.

Contributors include Nina Barragan (Argentina), Lilianet Brintrup (Chile), Veronica Chambers (Panama), Judith Ortiz Cofer (Puerto Rico), Edwidge Danticat (Haiti), Gabrielle Donnelly (England), Lynn Freed (South Africa), Akuyoe Graham (Ghana), Lucy Grealy (Ireland), Suheir Hammad (Jordan/Palestine), Ginu Kamani (India), Nola Kambanda (Burund/Rwanda), Helen Kim (Korea), Helie Lee (Korea), Kyoko Mori (Japan), Irina Reyn (Russia), Nelly Rosario (Dominican Republic), Ute Margaret Saine (Germany), Rosanne Katon-Walden (Jamaica), Annette Gallagher Weisman (Ireland), Mitsuye Yamada (Japan), Belle Yang (China), Joyce Zonana (Egypt), and many more.

"This is a book that creates a community of shared experiences among all of us who have come from somewhere else. . . . The insights, anecdotes, stories will make any reader who has ever felt out of place feel that a deeper bond unites us all, no matter where we are from. [A] funny, heart-touching, important book."--Julia Alvarez, author of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents

 

The Black Body
Click to order via Amazon

Meri Nana-Ama Danquah (Editor)

Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Seven Stories Press (October 6, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1583228896
ISBN-13: 978-1583228890
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.3 inches

What does it mean to have, or to love, a black body? Taking on the challenge of interpreting the black body's dramatic role in American culture are thirty black, white, and biracial contributors—award-winning actors, artists, writers, and comedians—including voices as varied as President Obama’s inaugural poet Elizabeth Alexander, actor and bestselling author Hill Harper, political strategist Kimball Stroud, television producer Joel Lipman, former Saturday Night Live writer Anne Beatts, and singer-songwriter Jason Luckett.

Ranging from deeply serious to playful, sometimes hilarious, musings, these essays explore myriad issues with wisdom and a deep sense of history. Meri Nana-Ama Danquah’s unprecedented collection illuminates the diversity of identities and individual experiences that define the black body in our culture.

 

Willow Weep for Me: A Black Woman's Journey Through Depression
Click to order via Amazon

Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: One World/Ballantine (February 22, 1999)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0345432134
ISBN-13: 978-0345432131
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.7 x 8.5 inches

This moving memoir of an African-American woman's lifelong fight to identify and overcome depression offers an inspirational story of healing and emergence. Wrapped within Danquah's engaging account of this universal affliction is rare and insightful testimony about what it means to be black, female, and battling depression in a society that often idealizes black women as strong, nurturing caregivers. A startlingly honest, elegantly rendered depiction of depression, Willow Weep for Me calls out to all women who suffer in silence with a life-affirming message of recovery. Meri Danquah rises from the pages, a true survivor, departing a world of darkness and reclaiming her life.

 

Shaking the Tree: A Collection of New Fiction and Memoir by Black Woman
Click to order via Amazon

Meri Nana-Ama Danquah (Editor)

Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (August 17, 2003)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 039305067X
Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches

"Not since Breaking Ice has an anthology so freed the spirits of African American women."—Ai

Showcasing the newest generation of black women writers, including ZZ Packer, Edwidge Danticat, and Shay Youngblood, Shaking the Tree gathers twenty-three voices that came of age in the wake of the civil rights, black arts, gay rights, and feminist movements. Their literature embodies the tragedies and triumphs of contemporary black women in their struggle to negotiate a sense of individual identity beyond the limited scope of gender and race.

Shaking the Tree offers a panorama of both fiction and memoir, revealing perspectives as diverse as they are dynamic: asha bandele recounts how she fell in love with a prisoner charged with murder; Rebecca Walker explores a childhood split between disparate racial and cultural landscapes; ZZ Packer remembers her near-abduction from summer camp at a time when local black children were being found murdered; Danzy Senna and Carolyn Ferrell tell tales about being young and biracial in a society that sees only in black and white.

This anthology is as urgent as it is historical—these voices are the future of American literature.

 

Becoming American: Personal Essays by First Generation Immigrant Women
Click to order via Amazon

Meri Nana-Ama Danquah (Editor)

Reading level: Ages 18 and up
Paperback: 236 pages
Publisher: Hyperion (August 8, 2001)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 078688343X
ISBN-13: 978-0786883431
Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches

For many of the immigrant writers in this revealing anthology, the fusion of "old country" customs, habits and lifestyles with those of the "new country" is fueled by pride and shame, determination and denial. Yet for others, the transition is made with relative ease. As a whole, this compelling collection illustrates that the speed of acclimation depends upon factors ranging from the writer's presuppositions to the time and location of her arrival in America. In an untitled essay, Lillianet Brintraup relates the uncomfortable experience of arriving from Chile to join a Ph.D. program at the University of Michigan, where the hectic pace and long work hours made her long for home. In "Secret Latina at Large," Veronica Chambers reflects on her first trip, at age 27, to her native Panama where she reveled in that country's similarities to her home in Brooklyn, as well as in its differences. Edwidge Danticat's "AHA!: Reflections On" is a sad reminder of America's prejudicial attitudes toward African-Haitian-Americans. Editor Danquah (Willow Weep for Me: A Black Woman's Journey Through Depression) has gathered writers from Japan, China, Burundi, Ireland and a host of other countries who testify to the influence of American television, the politics involved in choosing a language and the effects of climate, fast food and dress on the assimilation process. Providing insights into the variety of immigrant experiences, they dispel the belief that "in order to move toward something, one must move away from something else."
—Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

 

Related Links

Official Website
http://www.danquah.com/

Kent's Diaries INTERVIEW: Ghana’s literary icon - Nana-Ama Danquah
http://aalbc.it/meriinterview

Auld Lang Syne - feature article on Myjoyonline.com
http://opinion.myjoyonline.com/pages/feature/201112/79015.php

“Can you believe that this year is almost over?” I asked my friend, Don Mensah, a few weeks ago. “We’re nearly in 2012.” I was at Don’s Place, a sports bar in Osu that had been one of my main haunts for the past several years.

“I know,” Don responded. “This year just went so fast.” We both shook our heads, an unspoken emphasis of the point we were making, and then Don asked the bartender to serve me a beer. Once the beer had been poured, I held the glass up, nodded and smiled at Don. A thank you, a toast. I’d done that a million times before and that night, sitting on that barstool next to Don, I was certain I’d do it a million times more. I was wrong."  (Read the whole article).