Accra Noir

Accra is the perfect setting for noir fiction. The telling of such tales-ones involving or suggesting death, with a protagonist who is flawed or devious, driven by either a self-serving motive or one of the seven deadly sins-is woven into the fabric of the city's everyday life . . .Accra is more than just a capital city. It is a microcosm of Ghana. It is a virtual map of the nation's soul, a complex geographical display of its indigenous presence, the colonial imposition, declarations of freedom, followed by coups d'état, decades of dictatorship, and then, finally, a steady march forward into a promising future . . .Much like Accra, these stories are not always what they seem. The contributors who penned them know too well how to spin a story into a web . . . It is an honour and a pleasure to share them and all they reveal about Accra, a city of allegories, one of the most dynamic and diverse places in the world.

About the author

Nana-Ama Danquah was born in Accra and raised in the US. She is the author of Willow Weep for Me and editor of the anthologies Becoming American, Shaking the Tree, and The Black Body. Her work has been widely anthologized. Publications she has written for include Essence, the Washington Post, the Village Voice, and the Los Angeles Times. She has taught at Otis College of Arts and Design, Antioch College, and the University of Ghana.Ernest Kwame Nkrumah Addo graduated with a BA and MPhil from the University of Ghana, Legon. He has taught English at the University of Professional Studies, Accra, and has worked for the presidency as a speechwriter. Addo is currently pursuing a PhD in English at the University of South Africa.Gbontwi Anyetei spent his early years in Ghana, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, and Botswana before moving to Britain. A Pan-Africanist, he believes art can reframe our present and create a revolutionary future. His novel Mensah was short-listed at the 2017 Edinburgh International Book Festival, and his new novel, For the Republic of Hackney, is in progress. His essay “Writing for Africa from Britain” is featured in the 2019 anthology Safe. Anyetei relocated to Ghana in 2013.Ayesha Harruna Attah grew up in Accra and studied at Mount Holyoke College, Columbia University, and New York University. She is the author of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize–nominated Harmattan Rain, Saturday’s Shadows, and The Hundred Wells of Salaga. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Newsweek, and Asymptote. Attah is an Instituto Sacatar fellow and won a 2016 Miles Morland Foundation Scholarship for nonfiction. She lives in Senegal.Anna Bossman was born in Kumasi, Ghana. She obtained a degree in law and political science from the University of Ghana, Legon, and was admitted to the bar in 1980. She headed Ghana’s Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, and directed the Integrity and Anti-Corruption Department of the African Development Bank. Bossman has been writing short fiction since childhood and also writes poetry. Since 2017 she has been Ghana’s ambassador to France.Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond is the author of Powder Necklace, which Publishers Weekly called “a winning debut.” Her work is featured in various anthologies, including Africa39 and Everyday People. Forthcoming from Brew-Hammond are a children’s picture book from Knopf and a novel. She was a 2019 Edward F. Albee Foundation fellow, a 2018 Aké Arts and Book Festival guest author, a 2017 Aspen Ideas Festival scholar, and a 2016 Hedgebrook writer in residence.Nana-Ama Danquah was born in Accra and raised in the US. She is the author of Willow Weep for Me and editor of the anthologies Becoming American, Shaking the Tree, and The Black Body. Her work has been widely anthologized. Publications she has written for include Essence, the Washington Post, the Village Voice, and the Los Angeles Times. She has taught at Otis College of Arts and Design, Antioch College, and the University of Ghana.Kwame Dawes has published over thirty-five books, most recently the novel Bivouac. He was born in Ghana, grew up in Jamaica, and is considered one of the Caribbean’s leading writers. Dawes is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, an honorary FRSL, and programming director of the Calabash International Literary Festival. At the University of Nebraska, he is the Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner, Chancellor’s Professor of English, and director of the African Poetry Book Fund.Billie McTernan is a writer and editor who experiments with literary and visual art forms and has an MFA from the Kwame Nkrumah School of Science and Technology in Kumasi. While living and working in Accra, she has published many articles and essays from her travels in West Africa. She is currently working on a piece that falls somewhere between a short story and a novel.Eibhlín Ní Chléirigh is a writer who left Dublin, Ireland, over thirty years ago; first to Malawi, then Zimbabwe, before settling in Ghana in 1994. Her background is design and communications, but she has always had a love of storytelling and the rich, vibrant oral traditions of both Ireland and Ghana. She has written a number of short stories and essays.Kofi Blankson Ocansey graduated from Yale University and worked as a consultant and political speechwriter. He loved the Jamestown neighborhood in Accra because it is ground zero, rich with history and cultural syncretism. He lived in Accra with his son before passing away on December 6, 2019, at the age of fifty-nine.Anne Sackey lives in Accra. At the age of seven, quarantined with hepatitis A, she read many of the books in Kumasi’s children’s library to make the long days bearable. She escaped into the lives and worlds of the characters, and has been a voracious reader ever since. Sackey is the head of marketing at a pay-TV company, a job that allows her to satisfy her creative urges.Patrick Smith is a writer and journalist based in Paris, France. He contributes to Africa Confidential, Jeune Afrique, the BBC, and France 24. In the 1980s and 1990s, he lived and worked in Ghana and Nigeria, then investigated the links between the illegal exploitation of minerals and conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for the United Nations. Smith is currently working on a book about the role of multinational corporations in Africa.Adjoa Twum was born and nurtured in Accra, as was her passion for vivid storytelling. After studying at Tufts University and Columbia University in the United States, she is back on African soil, managing public health programmes in South Africa. Twum is currently working on a children’s book series to promote Ghanaian culture and pride.

Summary

Accra is the perfect setting for noir fiction. The telling of such tales—ones involving or suggesting death, with a protagonist who is flawed or devious, driven by either a self-serving motive or one of the seven deadly sins—is woven into the fabric of the city’s everyday life . . .
Accra is more than just a capital city. It is a microcosm of Ghana. It is a virtual map of the nation’s soul, a complex geographical display of its indigenous presence, the colonial imposition, declarations of freedom, followed by coups d’état, decades of dictatorship, and then, finally, a steady march forward into a promising future . . .
Much like Accra, these stories are not always what they seem. The contributors who penned them know too well how to spin a story into a web . . . It is an honour and a pleasure to share them and all they reveal about Accra, a city of allegories, one of the most dynamic and diverse places in the world.

Foreword

• Pitching to crime focused publications, blogs, journals and podcasts in UK, European and African markets


• Paid social across Facebook, Instagram ad Google


• Noir package offering – package deal purchase of past Noir titles (Lagos and Nairobi) for gifting


• NetGalley upload with retargeting of all readers for reviews on Goodreads, Amazon and Social media platforms


• Roundtable book launch with available contributors in partnership with a renowned media organisation on YouTube Live/similar platform

Product details

• Assisted by: Nana-Ama Danquah (Editor)
• Publisher: Ingram Publishers Services
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 20.04.2021
• EAN: 9781913175214
• ISBN: 978-1-913175-21-4
• Subjects: Fiction > Suspense; FICTION / Literary, FICTION / Noir, Crime and mystery: hard-boiled crime, noir fiction