Nadia Adjoa Owusu (born February 23, 1981) is an American writer and memoirist. She won a 2019 Whiting Award for her memoir Aftershocks. [1]
She graduated from Pace University, Hunter College, and Mountainview College.
In December 2017, her essay So Devilish a Fire was one of three TAR Chapbook Winners by The Atlas Review (TAR), a literary magazine that judged submissions anonymously. [2] [3] The essay was published as a chapbook by TAR in 2017. [4]
Nadia Owusu was born on February 23, 1981, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Her parents are Almas Janikian and the late Osei Owusu. Almas' family are Armenian Americans; her maternal grandparents had fled Turkey during the Armenian genocide, eventually settling in Watertown, Massachusetts. Owusu's father was from southern Ghana and part of the Ashanti tribe. Since Owusu's father worked for the United Nations, she moved a lot as a child; living in London England), Rome (Italy), Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Kampala (Uganda), Kumasi (Ghana) and Dar es Salaam (Tanzania). Owusu has lived in New York since she was 18. [4] [5]
Dar es Salaam is the largest city and financial hub of Tanzania. It is also the capital of the Dar es Salaam Region. With a population of over nine million people, Dar es Salaam is the largest city in East Africa by population and the sixth-largest in Africa. Located on the Swahili coast, Dar es Salaam is an important economic center and one of the fastest-growing cities in the world.
Walter Anthony Rodney was a Guyanese historian, political activist and academic. His notable works include How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, first published in 1972. He was assassinated in Georgetown, Guyana, in 1980.
Bongo Flava is a nickname for Tanzanian music. The genre was developed in the 1990s, mainly as a derivative of American hip hop and traditional Tanzanian styles such as taarab and dansi. Lyrics are usually in Swahili or English.
Gertrude Ibengwe Mongella is a Tanzanian politician who was the first president of the Pan-African Parliament and was president of the African Union Commission from 2003 to 2008.
Julius Nyerere International Airport is the international airport of Dar es Salaam, the largest city in Tanzania. It is located in Kipawa ward of Ilala District in Dar es Salaam Region of Tanzania. The airport has flights to destinations in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. It is named after Julius Nyerere, the nation's first president.
Martha Mlagala Mvungi was a Tanzanian novelist, short-story writer, academic and teacher. She wrote in both Kiswahili and English.
Wema Isaac Sepetu is a Tanzanian actress and beauty pageant titleholder who won the Miss Tanzania 2006. She represented Tanzania at Miss World 2006, which was held in Poland.
Liberata Mulamula, (néeRutageruka is a Tanzanian diplomat and politician who served as Minister for Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation from April 2021 to October 2022. She was appointed by President Samia Suluhu, on 31 March 2021 and was sworn into office on 1 April 2021.
Vanessa Hau Mdee, is a Tanzanian recording artist, television personality and radio host. Mdee is popularly known for being the first ever Tanzanian MTV VJ. She later rose to prominence as a radio and TV host, hosting Epic Bongo Star Search and Dume Challenge for ITV Tanzania before signing to B'Hits Music Group in late 2012.
Maggie Smith is an American poet, freelance writer, and editor who lives in Bexley, Ohio. Her 2016 poem "Good Bones" went viral and her 2023 memoir was a New York Times best-seller.
Elieshi Lema is a Tanzanian writer and publisher, also active in Tanzania's civil society.
Hon. Jokate Mwegelo is a prominent Tanzanian politician, entrepreneur, and media personality, known for her dynamic leadership and influence in both the public and private sectors. As the Secretary General of the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) Youth Wing (UVCCM), she has demonstrated exceptional dedication to shaping the future of Tanzania's youth and advancing the party’s vision.
Nina Ellen Riggs was an American writer and poet. Her best known work is her memoir, The Bright Hour, detailing her journey as a mother with incurable breast cancer. It was published shortly after her death. The book received critical acclaim. Riggs also contributed an article to New York Times series Modern Love.
Brenda Msangi is a Chief Executive Officer at Comprehensive Community Based Rehabilitation Tanzania (CCBRT) based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.She is also a healthcare leader, sustainable development advocate, and a businesswoman. She is known for her extensive work in the healthcare sector and her efforts to empower vulnerable communities in Tanzania.
Ruth E. Meena is a Tanzanian feminist activist and political scientist. She was a professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at the University of Dar es Salaam.
Aftershocks: A Memoir is a 2020 memoir book by Nadia Owusu, published by Simon & Schuster, which won the 2019 nonfiction Whiting Award. The book is a memoir covering personal, political and historical levels related to the author's origins and itinerant upbringing in several African and European countries accompanied by her caring although globetrotting father from Ghana. Despite their intense nomadism, her father nurtured her affective and cultural bonding to their Asante ethnic roots in West Africa, where they traveled every year to visit relatives and friends. The memoir spans her early childhood to her late twenties. Having been abandoned by her Armenian mother when she was 2 years old, Nadia orphaned from her father when she was 13, following which she battles over the years to summon a historically contextualized, confident self as a young adult to gain socially minded, high level education and employment in the United States.
Miss Grand Tanzania is a Tanzanian female national beauty pageant, founded in 2017 by a Dar es Salaam-based legal counsel, Rasheedah Jamaldin. The winner of the contest represented the country in its international parent contest, Miss Grand International. Jamaldin terminated her partnership with Miss Grand International Limited in late 2018 after her both affiliated representatives were unplaced two years in a row. Previously, from 2014 to 2015, the competition license belonged to a businessperson, Veronika Rovegno, but all country representatives during that period were appointed.
Safiya Sinclair is a Jamaican poet and memoirist. Her debut poetry collection, Cannibal, won several awards, including a Whiting Award for poetry in 2016 and the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature for poetry in 2017. She is currently an associate professor of creative writing at Arizona State University.
Scholastica Kimaryo is a Tanzanian life coach and women's rights advocate, who formerly worked as an international civil servant and journalist for three decades. Born in the Kilimanjaro Region of Tanzania, she fought against tradition to earn her secondary and tertiary education. After attending the Girls' High School in Tabora, in 1971 she earned a Bachelor of Science in home economics through a cooperative arrangement with Victoria University of Manchester and the University of East Africa, of Nairobi. She worked as a journalist and earned a post-graduate diploma in journalism from the University of Dar es Salaam, in a programme sponsored by the government-owned Tanganyika Standard.
Philomena Abakah is a Ghanaian professional footballer who plays as a forward for the Ghana women's national football team. She previously played for Berry Ladies and Simba Queens.