THE LONG READ New Daughters of Africa

Photography — Yagazie Emezi

Enter: the new daughters of Africa With the release of New Daughters of Africa, editor Margaret Busby explains why the collection – 25 years after Daughters of Africa was published – could not have come at a better time and introduces three stories from the anthology.

hat a joy to be introducing Kenya, Nigeria to Norway and Sudan to an anthology he had recently curated. From dirt you to New Daughters of Africa. Zimbabwe. His warm response read, in part: ‘It goes WEnabling the anthology to My ambition was and is to shine a light to show – the proportion of women poets Words — Camillet Dungy be assembled in record time, writers on as many as possible of the deserving, never did occur to me – a greater testi- not only came on board with enthusi- whether or not they are acknowledged mony to my non-sexist outlook I cannot asm and alacrity but often steered me or lauded by the gatekeepers, who tra- imagine! But seriously though, it’s quite or months now, I’ve been living heirloom Cherokee seeds to whomever long trial of the Middle Passage and onto, in the direction of others whose work ditionally single out a privileged few, true, and I am sure you wouldn’t have through the grief of deaths, dev- showed interest and sent postage – in a then into, American soil. She must have they admire. Altogether, more than 200 seemingly never too many to rock the wanted double standards applied in Fastation and debilitating disease. decade I was nearly too small to remem- secured raw peanuts in an unsearched living writers have contributed work to boat. But the boat is going nowhere if it is selection. But you are right to point it I am naming none of these things in an ber and which my daughter calls the scrap of cloth she kept near her body. New Daughters of Africa – an amazing content to drift in stagnating water. out. I know that in the next edition I will abstract, global sense, though they are olden days. Peanuts, like pole beans, like black-eyed party guest list! In my introduction to the 1992 anthol- especially search for poetry by women.’ pervasive conditions of our times. I am If we were to start from the start, where peas, are both food and seed. You can eat A template of sorts was provided by ogy, I concluded that: ‘Throughout these For my part, I present every woman talking about the deaths of family, the would that take us? Black-eyed peas, a them for power today or plant them for the anthology I compiled more than 25 women’s words runs the awareness of who did me the honour of accepting my failure of this country [the US] to provide staple food in West Africa, made the abundance tomorrow. People who came years ago, Daughters of Africa; yet the new connectedness to a wider flow of history, invitation to feature in this anthology safety to dear friends. I am talking about journey with enslaved people from that long before us carried the source of a new volume represents a fresh start, since to the precursors, our foremothers. Our with the Venerable Order of True African grief and exhaustion and autoimmune continent into the American south. In kind of flourishing through desolation it duplicates none of the writers who collective strength, like that of a chain, Sisterhood. A legacy of New Daughters of flares that make it difficult, daily, to get their book, In the Shadow of Slavery: Afri- most of us care not to fully comprehend. appeared in the 1992 collection. derives from maintaining the links.’ Africa that has been facilitated by their out of bed. I’m talking about seeming to ca’s Botanical Legacy in the Atlantic World, If I say my garden’s story starts with the Custom, tradition, friendships, I feel undeterred in my proselytizing generosity is a major new award that will run out of prospects. But, this week, we scholars Judith Carney and Richard planting of a seed, to which seed am I mentor/mentee relationships, sister- for greater visibility for women writers directly benefit African women, making pulled several cubic feet of rock from our Nicholas Rosomoff tell us that these same referring? hood, romance, inspiration, encour- of African descent, which until relatively possible a course of study free of the yard. Now the soil is ready to receive pole people used the stimulating kola nut to I remember the first garden I planted agement, sexuality, intersectional recently I had thought that I began doing worry of fees and accommodation costs. beans a friend gifted me last summer, manage the fetid water they were given as a married woman. It wasn’t much feminism, the politics of gender, race towards the end of the 1980s, when I And may all who find their way to this beans from a line of seed passed on by on slavers’ ships. Later, that nut would to speak of, neither the garden nor the and identity – the anthology explores began to work on compiling Daughters of anthology, regardless of gender, class or survivors since the 1838 Trail of Tears. make a key ingredient for Coca-Cola. house in whose yard it was sown. The an extensive spectrum of possibilities, Africa. However, I recently happened on race, feast well on its banquet of words. ● Soon, I will make a space in my garden When I speak about garden-variety crops garden was a way to help me feel rooted in ways that are touching, surprising, a letter from Wole Soyinka (who in 1986 for something that will look, by autumn, in this country, I nearly always point in a place where we were struggling to angry, considered, joyful, heartrending. made us all proud by becoming the first MARGARET BUSBY IS A MAJOR CULTURAL FIGURE like edible hope. toward simultaneous legacies of trauma begin our new life. I planted a few, sturdy IN THE UK AND AROUND THE WORLD. BORN IN Supposedly taboo subjects are addressed African to be awarded the Nobel Prize GHANA AND EDUCATED IN THE UK, SHE BECAME I’m getting ahead of myself. Working and triumph. Watermelon, sorghum, starts: marigolds and nasturtium. I put in head-on and with subtlety, familiar for Literature). In 1975, while he was BRITAIN’S YOUNGEST AND FIRST BLACK WOMAN the land, I am always losing track of a millet, sesame seed, rice: none of these zucchini, mostly for the riot of its bright PUBLISHER WHEN SHE CO-FOUNDED ALLISON dilemmas elicit new takes. editor of Transition magazine, he wrote linear concept of time. What happens would be what they are in America were blossoms. I kept an artichoke for the & BUSBY IN THE LATE 1960S. SHE HAS JUDGED Countries represented range from me a letter responding to something I NUMEROUS NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL today is fed by what I did yesterday. What it not for the centuries of human traffick- same reason. The thistle flower delighted Australia to the Bahamas, Cameroon to had said when our paths had crossed in LITERARY COMPETITIONS, AND SERVED ON THE I reap in the fall will recollect decisions ing we call the slave trade. The stories I’ve me, though it attracted an army of ants BOARDS OF SUCH ORGANIZATIONS AS THE ROYAL Dominica, Egypt to Ethiopia, Finland to London and I had seemingly berated LITERARY FUND, WASAFIRI MAGAZINE AND THE made by the likes of Dr John Wyche received tell me some ancestor must have that quickly moved the artichoke beyond Ghana, Haiti to Côte D’Ivoire, Jamaica to him for not including enough women in AFRICA CENTRE. – the man who began to send out these kept seed for okra in her hair through the the possibility of human consumption. I

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I’m not sure I understand how it would be possible to talk about history without taking into account me. There is power to be generated from cultivating whatever might sustain me, in the environment out of which our whatever way I wish. I grow sunflowers and sweet potatoes history springs in my own garden. I plant what plants I desire, and I harvest or not as I choose. I grow mint and tolerate the purslane Even if I had managed to harvest any- On the property of Thomas Jefferson’s people these days tend to weed. As we thing during our brief season in that retreat home, Poplar Forest, archeolo- learn in Lucille Clifton’s poem ‘mulberry house, I shouldn’t have trusted the food gists have discovered caches of food that fields’, sometimes unmastered growth that dirt produced. Fumes from the give insight into the diet of the enslaved reveals what it is our land most dearly nearby freeway drifted over us all night men and women who lived on that prop- needs. I grow poppies and let the wild and all day. Anytime they were touched, erty. The very produce of the earth has violets flourish, for, through their flower- flakes of paint flew from the Victorian provided a lasting record of who on that ing, time will progress. duplex’s exterior walls. Soil tests in the land had what type of access, autonomy It’s been nearly a decade since I dug area have revealed lead levels hundreds and power. The list of foods found in in the particular patch of dirt our neigh- of parts per million above what is deemed the storage pits reveals the epidemic of bour questioned, but I still regularly to be safe, and I hadn’t built raised beds. deprivation endemic to the institution encounter incredulity when I talk about Still, I wanted to witness a plan come into of slavery – but it also reveals the strat- coaxing beauty out of the legacy pollut- fruition. I planted seeds, I planted starts, egies of a people insistent on nourishing ants that haunt us every day. Not too long I watered, and I weeded, and I watched. I themselves. ago, a woman asked me how I could fancy could say that my efforts were futile, but Archeological studies suggest that the myself an environmental writer when I I won’t. There had been little but dirt in people at Poplar Forest grew corn in their write so much about African American that yard before I started digging. For the gardens. They probably grew sunflowers, history. few months we lived in that house, we got mint, sweet potatoes and violets. They For a breath or two, I was speechless. to walk outside each day and appreciate a might have grown the violets and sun- I’m not sure I understand how it would kind of flowering. flowers as ornamentals, but just as likely, be possible to talk about history without Not too long ago, I shared a few hours they were using them for food. The violets taking into account the environment out with a Salvadoran poet who walked across could be a kind of replacement for okra of which our history springs. the desert into the US when he was nine and greens. Even the ornamental plants Living in the body I live in, I can’t help years old. There is a great deal of hardship around the quarters were provisions the but see the direct implications, the dev- in his story. The landscapes he’s walked people who tended the land could eat. I astating implications, of the erasure of across have delivered incredible pain. like to think that the people appreciated certain histories. When you dismiss lives And yet, as we talked about the impor- looking at these plants as much as they from the record, you put those lives in tance of writers of colour celebrating the appreciated knowing they could depend jeopardy. There is a reason that freeways living world, he found himself recall- on them for physical sustenance when were so frequently run through one part ing his grandmother’s garden. There was the need arose. Archeologists have found of town (the black part of town) and not joy there, he insisted. He wouldn’t let his the remains of wheat, oats, rye, sumac, others. The reason is because the lives and charge to document suffering stop him blackberry, purslane, pigweed, poppies the property of those who lived in that from recalling this pleasure. and more. The people raised chickens, part of town were not valued as highly as There is sustaining power to be gen- whose eggs they could sell, which they others. The pollution of that indifference erated from claiming even complicated also might have done with some of the persists in the very ground people walk beauty as a peace we are entitled to enjoy. other produce from their gardens. But on today. Writing about the environment Once, as I dug in dirt contaminated Jefferson made sure his son-in-law ‘put is a necessary political decision, just as with legacy pollutants, a local nursery’s an end to the cultivation of tobacco’ by finding a way to beautify the patch of dirt discounted flowers in their black plastic the people he called property, who were we called home was a necessity in that pots nearby, a woman from the neigh- growing it in their gardens. There was first house my husband and I shared. It is bourhood stopped to watch me. Why no other way of drawing a line between also why, once the ants announced their would I bother to tend such a yard, she what is theirs and mine, Jefferson admit- interest in the artichoke, I let them enjoy wanted to know. I remember feeling ted in a letter, than to forbid these men its substance while I settled for appreci- angry that she didn’t believe our block, and women from growing for personal ating its splendour. I was not dependent our rented house, deserved such a dem- use the same crops they cultivated in his on that artichoke for its nutritional value, onstration of care. I know it might take a fields. Don’t think I don’t have histories and if my point is to see to it that things lot of work, I told her, but I want to grow like this in mind when I insist on growing around me thrive, sharing with ants something beautiful. what I please in the soil that surrounds could be part of this goal. I refuse to take I

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part in the segregation of the imagina- people who lived here before us poured bids for pollination, and the plant will of rain, the loud relatives, the red wine the misery and fear of those who stayed exile. To conceal them. Especially from tion that assigns greater value to some river rock over most of the other patches be of no practical use to me. But these and impromptu dance moves, the sweet behind, the kindness of your host yourself. You learn to ‘adapt’. And when experiences than it assigns to others. If that might have made a garden. But the enormous flowers are so lovely. I find it peace, the emerald hills, the sound of country. Because you must, after all, you finally receive your immigration there is to be a flourishing that I can cul- rhubarb, in its three-square-foot bed, practical, as a matter of survival, to seek my daughters laughing in between two reinvent (not rebuild, please, no) your papers, your new friends, your lawyer, tivate, I want its reach to be wide. comes back each year to remind me of evidence of the wild wonder of the world. nap dreams, the escapades to my aunt’s life. Because your surroundings should your colleagues at the store, all rejoice: In our current yard, near where I’ll something. What? Where there appears In this summer’s full blooming, it’s as if rural home, the smell of cow dung, of not determine the state of your heart. Of ‘All is well now!’ As though a home, a grow the Cherokee Trail of Tears pole to be only dirt, there may be the root the joy I glean in this garden has erupted eucalyptus leaves, of freedom, the taste course not. country, a life could be replaced so easily, beans, there is some rhubarb that has system of some kind of insistent thriving. over every inch of my life. ● of isombe, the sight of bougainvillea on And so you carry on, in a refugee by paperwork. greeted me each spring since we moved I never know how much I need to see every street, the sound of church bells camp, fetching wood with strangers who You learn to oil the stretch marks that BORN IN DENVER, COLORADO, CAMILLE T DUNGY into this house. Rhubarb is a tricky plant, that rhubarb unfurling until it begins to IS THE AUTHOR OF FOUR COLLECTIONS OF POETRY, on Sundays and the muezzin at dawn, the soon become your world, rising early to criss-cross your heart, to walk fast, not to scorned by many but by others fiercely unfurl. Rhubarb may lack the power to MOST RECENTLY TROPHIC CASCADE (2017), AND scent of Arabica coffee beans, the voices beat the maize distribution line, cutting smile to strangers, to do 10 things at once, THE ESSAY COLLECTION GUIDEBOOK TO RELATIVE loved. The nontoxic stems of the plant cure what truly ails this world, but, I am STRANGERS: JOURNEYS INTO RACE, MOTHERHOOD of dear friends, the red soil, the green, the deals to feed your babies, looking at this ‘to plan’. You learn not to hear the voids are fibrous and nutritious, containing thankful, it brings me back to the rec- AND HISTORY (2017), A FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL green, the green … country within a country, not knowing in this wealth, the heavy silence on the useful medicinal characteristics. For ognition of wonder and of beauty; and BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD. SHE HAS ALSO It was home until I crossed the border, when you will ever get out. Or in the crowded morning commute, the wails in EDITED ANTHOLOGIES, INCLUDING BLACK our contemporary taste, these stems that is not a gift to be dismissed. This NATURE: FOUR CENTURIES OF AFRICAN AMERICAN looked back at the green sliding into red, homeless shelter, receiving food stamps, the teenager’s menacing eyes, the unrav- are bitter. We typically add quite a bit of year, for the first time, the rhubarb burst NATURE POETRY (2009). HER HONOURS INCLUDE and felt everything inside me falling apart. and explanations of how to proceed being elling in the soccer mom’s high-pitched NEA FELLOWSHIPS IN BOTH POETRY AND PROSE, sugar to help the medicine go down, con- into flower. The many-headed bracts given as if you were a five-year-old and voice, the insecurity in the suited man’s AN AMERICAN BOOK AWARD, TWO NORTHERN ❡ verting what might be considered a veg- look like 10,000 snowflakes held firm CALIFORNIA BOOK AWARDS, AND TWO NAACP wherever you came from requires things walk. You learn to wear dark colours in etable into something we use in simple on summer branches. I am supposed to IMAGE AWARD NOMINATIONS. SHE IS A PROFESSOR ‘Thank God you are safe,’ they tell you. to be explained s.l.o.w.l.y. winter, and not to miss the happy, organ- AT COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY. syrups, cakes, and pies. Who were the lop off the flower heads to encourage the ‘FROM DIRT’ WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN EMERGENCE Not knowing that your heart was never You smile when kindness offers you ized chaos that is your hometown. You people who put in this rhubarb? There edible stalks to keep growing. They’ll MAGAZINE. more at risk, never more a wound, never used clothes and a cooking pan, you learn to unlearn yourself. To unlearn the is nothing else like it in the yard. The go dormant sooner if I leave these bold more famished. are overwhelmed by this warmth, these organic joy, the carefree in you. And not ‘You are so lucky you got out. Now you random acts of goodness but hold your- see the dangers of this place where every- can rebuild your life.’ And you want to say self from rupturing into a river. Because thing has a limit. Where your being feels that you don’t want to rebuild, not here, you are someone, you were someone, tamed. Where life feels like a trap, and not in this concrete greyness which leaves because you once had your own new you don’t understand why because eve- you out of breath. Not in these superstore clothes and plenty of cooking pans, thank rything ‘is well now’. You learn because alleys where bananas exude sadness, and you very much, and somehow this beau- the alternative is too painful. Because remind you of the haunting look in the tiful kindness also feels terribly unkind, to remember – to truly remember – is to old lion’s eyes, at the city zoo. The look of unkind to your being, to your inside, to hurt, and your stretch-marked heart can Home the displaced. your life, and just makes you want to cry. only stretch so far. Words — Ketty Nivyabandi Not in this place where bananas refuse You overcome being called a refugee. ❡ to grow, where parenting involves a stra- A small, wounding word in which the tegic plan, where time is an investment, world tries to squeeze you every day. As I still hear the yellow nest and the once lived in a yellow little house. table where I would often pretend to home, where the sun is always free.’ where couples debate what to have for your vastness cries out. emerald hills, calling my name every Each morning, birds convened write. Most of the time I simply soaked It was home, in every sense of the dinner like a constitutional reform. You overcome the weight and inexpli- day. Sometimes, on a merciful night, the Iand sang at my bedroom window. in the silence. And beside it, a long word. Where a crowded commute ride screams cable shame that comes with that word. moon will rise just as it used to, under my The gate was indigo and inside the lounge chair, always tilted in the same, Where one softens. with loneliness. The feeling of not belonging. As you des- porch. On such nights I close my eyes, garden all kinds of flowers rose to kiss exact position: the only place in the Where one belongs. ‘You’ll see, it will be great for the chil- perately try to catch your dignity, flying and I am home. ● the sunny walls. The yellow nest was house where one could spot the glisten- It was home until one sudden dren.’ And you want to tell them that away in the autumn wind. filled with cherished books, colourful ing, silvery Lake Tanganyika. Between morning, when danger came banging what is good for your children is napping You overcome becoming part of the A POET, HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER AND SOCIAL art and sweet peace. the neighbour’s blue tin roof and two at the indigo gate. Prompted me to drop with the scent of the rain falling on dusty diaspora, this warm, wide sea of people JUSTICE ACTIVIST FROM BURUNDI, KETTY NIVYABANDI HAS HAD POEMS PUBLISHED IN There was a little kitchen, with cherry- tall mango trees. On some mornings, the book in my hand, grab the closest ground, running barefoot in the grass whom you now begin to resemble; always SEVERAL ANTHOLOGIES WORLDWIDE. SHE IS AN red cabinets made by the most business- after the skies had cried all night, I would bag and lock up the sunny nest. ‘It’s just with 10 cousins, the taste of small and a little too distant, or too close to home. OUTSPOKEN VOICE FOR JUSTICE IN HER COUNTRY, savvy street artisan I have ever met. In witness the mighty mountains of Congo for a couple of days,’ I thought. A couple sweet bananas (how does one explain Never in balance. Almost like, but never AND BECAME A REFUGEE IN 2015, AFTER SHE LED WOMEN’S PROTESTS IN HER CAPITAL CITY. SHE the little kitchen, my daughters and I rise from the fog. And everything inside of days later, danger spat me out of my this?), the sun teasing the melanin in their quite ‘home’. CURRENTLY LIVES IN CANADA. IN 2012 SHE WAS baked, giggled, danced and let our free- me would fall into place. city, out of the hills, out of the lake, out skins, and the tender love and care they You put one foot in front of the other, CHOSEN TO REPRESENT BURUNDI AT POETRY PARNASSUS, THE CULTURAL PROGRAMME range souls be. Looking down on us was It is where I enjoyed the most joyful of the drums, out of the homeland I receive everywhere they go … without thinking, forget thinking, forget ACCOMPANYING THE 2012 SUMMER OLYMPICS IN a Gael Faye poster, cooking books from evenings with rowdy, tipsy relatives who adore. Danger chased as I drove at the But you remain quiet, because there any logic you ever had, because what kind LONDON. I across the globe (including delicious Car- sometimes popped in with red wine, highest speed, through the coiled bowels are no words to explain these mutter- of logic shatters a life into pieces in one ibbean recipes by Maya Angelou), my some cheese and impromptu dance of my beloved land, running away from ings in your veins. Because you should single morning? You create normal out daughters’ early drawings, vintage pho- moves. It’s also where I often lay alone, the only place I had ever wanted to be. be grateful for being alive, even when of the abnormal. For months, for years, tographs. And music. by candlelight, and let my heart breathe. Running away from the yellow, the your whole life burns. Because there is until one day you surprise yourself laugh- Always music. Just above me hung a chalkboard, where indigo, the cherry red, the morning a certain indecency in not being grate- ing out loud. Find new blossoms in your On the yellow porch sat a white high my daughter once wrote: ‘Welcome birds, the splendid silvery lake, the scent ful. In not acknowledging your fortune, heart. You learn to live with the scars of

66 NEW INTERNATIONALIST MARCH-APRIL 2019 67 THE LONG READ New Daughters of Africa Saying goodbye to Mary Danquah

Words — Nana-Ama Danquah

It is not a balanced equation if all languages must come to English to mean something. – Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o

ana-Ama!’ my mother called acquisition of a new name. Even though names or Anglicize their own. Itzak is out. ‘Come meet one of your in private, and in the company of other transformed to Isaac, Ekaterina to Kate. ‘N cousins.’ Africans, my parents continued to call Chang Kong-Sang becomes Jackie Chan. We were in Accra, at a family gather- me Nana-Ama – my traditional, cultural I didn’t want Nana-Ama to become any- ing – a wedding or funeral or naming name – when introducing me to anyone thing else. I wanted to remain who I was, ceremony, I can’t say which; they all else, they used my Christian name, who I’d always been. That, unfortunately, blur into what, essentially, seems like Mildred. I was not used to being called wasn’t a viable option. the same memory of delicious platters of Mildred. The children I went to school with food and an endless array of new kinfolk The practice of conferring Christian, weren’t just mean, they were hateful. whose names and exact relationship to or English, names on African children They felt as certain of their superiority me I no longer even try to keep track of. was introduced by missionaries from the as Americans as they did of my supposed Except this time. This time would be dif- Western world who came to what they inferiority as an African. And they never ferent. This introduction would leave me considered the ‘Dark Continent’ for the let me forget it. I was teased mercilessly, speechless. purpose of religious indoctrination. In called a monkey, an ‘African booty- I went and stood beside my mother. many cases, children were required to scratcher’, asked if I had slept in trees She placed a hand on my back, just below have Christian names in order to register back home, and told on a regular basis my right shoulder. ‘Nana-Ama,’ she said, and attend classes in the missionary-run to ‘go back to Africa’. Imagine if in the almost giddily, ‘this is Mary Danquah. schools. Usually that meant balancing an midst of all that, I’d asked my terrorizers And Mary, this is Nana-Ama.’ existence of duality – using one name to call me Nana-Ama! I was instantly confused, thrust when operating within the colonial ❡ into what felt like an alternate reality. I system and using another when operat- blinked slowly, allowing my lids to stay ing within one’s native culture. It never occurred to me that I could down for a moment or two longer than Mildred was as far removed from change my name until one of my class- usual, then I looked at my ‘new’ cousin. my reality as anything could be. I mates mentioned something about For a moment, I half-expected to see my was being called a foreign name in a looking forward to marriage in adult- own face staring back. foreign country by foreign people. It hood in order to drop a surname she ‘I’m sorry… um… did you… what… um… was ill-fitting, and I wore it uncomfort- disliked. That’s when the idea of finding Mary Danquah?’ I mumbled, unable to ably, resentfully, woefully. It was like a name to replace Mildred took hold decide which of my many questions to sharing a body with a complete stran- and I began exploring possibilities for ask first. ger. Mildred was an old white woman reinvention. She nodded, said hello. in Hampstead who enjoyed a proper The lists I made were ordered alpha- ‘That’s my name, too,’ I blurted, drown- fry-up – baked beans, tomatoes, blood betically. Beginning with ‘A’, I jotted ing in the awkwardness of the moment. pudding, triangles of heavily buttered down names I thought acceptable, There was something about the way she said Not once in my 40-something years had I toast – not a Ghanaian girl transplanted thought I could tolerate, perhaps even ever met another Mary Danquah. to Takoma Park, Maryland, who craved learn to like. I listened to their rhythms, my name, with pride, with certainty, that aponkyenkrakra with fufu. the particular cadence people used when ❡ Americans tend to be lazy-tongued, saying them. I turned each letter over made me suddenly feel weightless and free In 1973, at the age of six, I emigrated to preferring brevity over all else, including and around in my mouth, letting my the US to be with my mother, who had beauty. They tend toward names that are tongue glide over the smooth edges of its been living there for three years, and my familiar and monosyllabic: Sam instead vowels. I tried to avoid names with sharp, father, who had only recently arrived. of Samantha, Beth not Elizabeth, Hank hard consonants, and names that were an One of the many changes that came for Henry, and Tim not Timothy. Many obvious magnet for bullies. with living in a new country was the immigrants to America adopt English The first name I fell in love with wasI

68 NEW INTERNATIONALIST MARCH-APRIL 2019 69 THE LONG READ CAPITAL AT RISK. INVESTMENTS ARE LONG TERM AND MAY NOT BE READILY REALISABLE. ABUNDANCE IS AUTHORISED AND REGULATED BY THE FINANCIAL CONDUCT AUTHORITY (525432). Amanda. I heard it one day while watch- that’s ‘different’, ‘funny’, ‘difficult to pro- Who best to define the parameters of ing television. A father, square-jawed and nounce’, a name that announces one’s your authenticity than you? towering, had been teased by his daugh- origins. After I decided to drop Meri and use ter, a raven-haired girl with Shirley Meri is a well-constructed persona, a only Nana-Ama, the first person I told Temple-style curls. Afterwards, he said, person my circumstances forced me to was my friend and mentor, Ngũgĩ wa ‘Oh, Amanda,’ through an exaggerated become. Whereas I despised Mildred, I Thiong’o. We were at lunch, speaking of smile, then used his fingers to softly brush am rather fond of Meri, but she doesn’t Africa, specifically of dictatorships and the girl’s bangs from her forehead. There reflect the whole truth of who I am, the the need for philosopher-kings. was such tenderness in that scene. We image I see in the mirror, or the inter- ‘I don’t think Meri is such a bad name,’ had an Amanda in our school whom eve- nal voice I hear when I put pen to paper. he said with a shrug. ryone liked. She wasn’t in my class, but Because of that, when I began my liter- ‘I hear what you’re saying, James,’ during recess, when we were all outside, I ary career I published as Meri Nana- I responded, not missing a beat. I had watched the other kids speak to her, their Ama Danquah. A few times in my young deliberately called him by the colonial voices carrying the sound of each syllable adulthood, I had tried to do away with name he was given at his baptism but had until it started turning into song. Meri altogether but was advised against very publicly and emphatically rejected add to your I’d often pretend that those were scenes it by editors, colleagues and friends. as a young writer. We both laughed, and from my life, that the father in the pro- ‘Nana-Ama is just too…’ each one said, when our eyes met I knew he understood. gramme was talking to me, gently patting citing one or more of the reasons that ❡ retirement pot my afro-puffs; that my imaginary circle of had previously sent me running in the friends was singing my name in perfect direction of Meri. Mary Danquah is round-faced and soft- harmony, as though we were in a musical. spoken, with a presence that stands firmly ❡ There were so many things about that in its space. We laughed, exchanged pleas- name, Amanda, that reminded me of my I don’t know the meaning of Mary. It antries, expressed shock about sharing own name, the one I’d quite unceremo- occurred to me while writing this essay the same name. niously been stripped of. Rhythmically, to look it up, but I didn’t because, frankly, ‘I only borrowed it for a bit,’ I teased. they are the same: ah-MAN-dah and nah- I don’t have a burning desire to know. Just before we said our farewell, I NAH-mah. They have the same three- I imagine there is a beautiful story to could feel the part of me that had, for so syllable beat and, with the exception of its origin, one that probably predates long, been Meri Danquah preparing to ‘d’, all of the letters in Amanda are also the Biblical anecdotes we know of the leave with her. My cousin and I embraced in Nana-Ama. I think that’s why I didn’t, Madonna and of Magdalene. There’s a like two women who knew their meeting in the end, choose Amanda. I didn’t want story behind every name, a narrative was kismet. to be called a name that would forever much longer than the simple adjectives ‘Bye, Mary,’ I said as she was walking remind me of my original name. often given by way of translation, in away, her stride purposeful. She turned, Next were the names that began with which so much is often lost. waved. ‘Z’ which, perhaps because it’s the last Tennessee Williams wrote that ‘the ‘Bye, Nana-Ama.’ letter in the alphabet, seems to throw name of a person you love is more than There was something about the way a shade of mystery onto everything in language’. As I grew older and less com- she said my name, with pride, with which it appears. It wasn’t hard to envi- promising in my love of self, I began certainty, that made me suddenly feel sion myself as a Zelda, Zoe, Zora or even to see each reason I had been given for weightless and free. ● Zeva. Ah, but those names commanded needing an English name for the lie it attention; they were bold, the exact oppo- was. How can Schwarzenegger be easier A NATIVE OF GHANA, NANA-AMA DANQUAH IS site of what I was convinced I needed: to pronounce than Nana-Ama? If Ameri- THE AUTHOR OF THE ACCLAIMED 1998 MEMOIR WILLOW WEEP FOR ME: A BLACK WOMAN’S an ordinary name that would blend in, cans can learn the proper pronunciation JOURNEY THROUGH DEPRESSION, AND THE EDITOR bring an end to the teasing and make the of Liev, Bogosian and Sinead, then why OF THE ANTHOLOGIES BECOMING AMERICAN pain of being me – heavily accented me, not Nana-Ama? My name also has a sig- (2000), SHAKING THE TREE: A COLLECTION OF NEW FICTION AND MEMOIR BY BLACK WOMEN (2003), without driving dark-skinned black girl me, African me – nificance that surpasses language. It holds AND THE BLACK BODY (2009). SHE HAS TAUGHT miraculously disappear. its own power and makes its own magic. AND LECTURED AT MANY NOTABLE INSTITUTIONS, AMONG THEM THE UNIVERSITY OF GHANA AND Eventually, I just returned to my own It ties me to a land, a history, a lineage. ANTIOCH COLLEGE, AND HAS WRITTEN FOR PUBLICATIONS INCLUDING THE WASHINGTON climate change given names. You see, I had not just one Sometimes we look back on our but two Christian names. In addition lives and, despite the difficulties of our POST, THE AFRICA REPORT AND THE LOS to Mildred, there was also an English journey, despite the many times we fal- ANGELES REVIEW OF middle name: Mary. tered, it seems as though we were des- BOOKS. SHE DIVIDES The name felt too deeply rooted in tined to be exactly where we have arrived. HER TIME BETWEEN ACCRA, GHANA, AND religion for someone such as I, who has As an African writer, it feels strangely like THE COACHELLA always entertained doubt. Neverthe- a rite of passage, this decision to dispense VALLEY IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. less, I changed the spelling to Meri to with the use of an English name. Chinua make it uniquely my own. For years, Achebe was once Albert. Kofi Awoonor that name served me well; it enabled was once George. Ama Ata Aidoo was NEW DAUGHTERS OF AFRICA (£30.00, MYRIAD me to move through American society once Christina. Buchi Emecheta was once EDITIONS) IS OUT NOW without the additional scrutiny and xen- Florence. Now I, too, am my authentic AND AVAILABLE VIA ophobia that comes with having a name self again. ETHICALSHOP.ORG

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