On this episode, we speak to Nana-Ama Danquah on her 2022 AKO Caine Prize shortlisted story ‘When a Man Loves a Woman’, originally published in Accra Noir (2021) edited by Nana-Ama herself. We talk about how a love story ends up in Noir fiction and explore the very thin line between love and hate, or something like it. What happens when a couple’s essence is upended and they are unable to redefine their new reality? Listen in and enjoy!

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Nana-Ama Danquah is an author, editor, freelance journalist, ghostwriter, public speaker, actress, and teacher.

Her groundbreaking memoir, Willow Weep for Me: A Black Woman’s Journey Through Depression was hailed by the Washington Post as “A vividly textured flower of a memoir, one of the finest to come along in years.”

A native of Ghana, Ms. Danquah is the editor of four anthologies:

· Becoming American: Personal Essays by First Generation Immigrant Women (Hyperion);

· Shaking the Tree: New Fiction and Memoir by Black Women (W.W. Norton & Co.);

· The Black Body (Seven Stories Press); and,

· Accra Noir (Akashic Books)

Ms. Danquah earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing, with an emphasis in creative nonfiction, from Bennington College. She has published articles in newspapers, journals, and magazines, such as the Africa Report, the Village Voice, the Los Angeles Times, Allure and Essence.

Her essays and poems have been heavily anthologized and used in high school and university textbooks.

Between 2012 and 2016, Danquah was the International Speechwriter for H.E. John Dramani Mahama, the President of Ghana, her birth country. In that capacity, Ms. Danquah wrote four United Nations General Assembly speeches, several State of the Nation addresses, and various speeches delivered by President Mahama at high-level conferences, meetings, and panels.

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This conversation was made possible in partnership with the AKO Caine Prize for African Writing.