Menaye Donkor
Menaye Donkor is a model, entrepreneur and philanthropist. She is married to footballer Sulley Muntari.
Menaye Donkor was born in 1983. She was brought up by her parents in Accra, Ghana, and is the youngest of seven siblings with four brothers and two sisters. At the age of seven Menaye inherited the job title of “Royal Stool Bearer” for her paternal grandmother, who is the Queen mother of Agona Asafo. She graduated with honors in marketing from York University in Toronto, Canada.
In her early twenties she started modelling after winning the “Miss Universe Ghana 2004” pageant and graced the covers of many magazines in Ghana. She also did editorial work for magazines in South Africa, Milan and Canada.
Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Annie Johnson in 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri. Her parents divorced when she was only three and she was sent with her younger brother Bailey to live with their grandmother in the small town of Stamps, Arkansas. In Stamps, the young girl experienced the racial discrimination that was the legally enforced way of life in the American South, but she also absorbed the deep religious faith and old-fashioned courtesy of traditional African American life. She credits her grandmother and her extended family with instilling in her
Wangari Maathai
Wangari Muta Maathai was born in Nyeri, Kenya (Africa) in 1940. The first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate degree, Professor Maathai obtained a degree in Biological Sciences from Mount St. Scholastica College in Atchison, Kansas (1964). She subsequently earned a Master of Science degree from the University of Pittsburgh (1966). Professor Maathai pursued doctoral studies in Germany and the University of Nairobi, obtaining a Ph.D. (1971) from the University of Nairobi where she also taught veterinary anatomy. She became chair of the Department of Veterinary Anatomy and an associate professor in 1976 and 1977 respectively. In both cases, she was the first woman to attain those positions in the region.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie writes about an Africa far removed from bleak media clichés. Claire Sawers chats to her about superstition and stereotypes
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s voice reflects a life split between America and her home country, Nigeria. So while she’ll enunciate each of her words clearly and slowly, she’s also picked up that uniquely American habit of adding a questioning ‘right?’ at the end of her sentences, or throwing in a ‘what the heck’. Despite having studied in the US, and now dividing her time between homes in Maryland and Lagos, 31-year-old Adichie is in no doubt about her identity. ‘I always consider myself Nigerian; a Nigerian that likes to spend time in America.’
Chinua Achebe
Chinua Achebe born November 16, 1930, and educated at Government College in Umuahia and at University College of Ibadan, Nigeria. He received a B.A. from London University in 1953 and in 1956 studied broadcasting in London at the BBC. He joined the Nigerian Broadcasting Company in Lagos in 1954, later becoming its director of external broadcasting. During the Civil War in Nigeria he worked for the Biafran government service. After the war he was appointed senior research fellow at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, of which he is now emeritus professor of English. He has lectured at many universities worldwide, served as McMillan-Stewart Lecturer at Harvard and Presidential Fellow Lecturer at the World Bank (both 1998). Since 1990, he has been Charles P. Stevenson Jr. Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College.
