Meri Nana Ama Danquah

Life

Meri Nana-Ama Danquah was born Mildred Mary Nana-Ama Boakyewaa Brobby in Accra, Ghana, to Josephine Nana Korantemaa Danquah and Norbert Duke Brobby. Her maternal grandfather is Dr J. B. Danquah, a writer and prominent Ghanaian political figure, and she was the niece of actor Paul Danquah, about whom she has written in The Washington Post.

Danquah moved to the United States at six years of age to live with her mother, who had migrated there three years earlier to attend Howard University. Her parents divorced six years later, separating when Danquah was aged 11. While attending Foxcroft, an all-girls’ boarding school located in Middleburg, Virginia, Danquah decided to change her name from Mildred Brobby to Meri Danquah. After dropping out of the University of Maryland, she eventually moved to Los Angeles at the age of 20. She has one sister, Paula; they are 10 years apart.

Danquah gave birth to her daughter in 1991, and they lived with Danquah’s then-boyfriend and the father of her daughter. After filing for a restraining order from her daughter’s father on the basis of domestic violence, Danquah and her daughter moved back to Washington D.C. where her parents and sister still lived.

While in D.C., Danquah recognized that she suffered from clinical depression, an illness that would become the basis for her memoir Willow Weep for Me: A Black Woman’s Journey Through Depression, which was published in 1998 to critical praise. Excerpts from the book were published in the anthology Out of Her Mind: Women Writing on Madness. Danquah was chosen by the National Mental Health Association as spokesperson for their Campaign on Clinical Depression, which initiative specifically targeted African-American women.

In 1999, Danquah earned her Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing and Literature, concentrating on Creative Nonfiction, from Bennington College, despite never completing an undergraduate degree. She has taught at the University of Ghana, at Otis College of Art and Science, and in Antioch College's MFA program, and is sought-after as a speaker and lecturer.

She has also edited anthologies of writing by women, including Shaking the Tree: A Collection of New Fiction and Memoir by Black Woman (2003), about which Maya Angelou said in a cover quote: "Ms. Danquah has indeed shaken a literary tree. The fruit that fell down will nourish readers for a long time...."

In 2011, Danquah announced that she was working on a novel. She has written articles and columns in publications including The Washington Post, The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, Allure, Essence, The Africa Report and The Daily Graphic. She is senior editor of African literature and culture at the Los Angeles Review of Books.