KWEI JONES QUARTEY | BLOG

Kwei Quartey, MD, blogs about African writing and literature, African mysteries, being a Ghanaian-American writer, travel to Africa and beyond, human rights, politics, popular culture, and medicine.

Is China Colonizing Africa?

In 2013, I wrote a column in FPIF called Ghana’s Chinese Gold Rush. I was fascinated and alarmed by the migration of thousands of Chinese...

kweiquartey

Feb 16, 20224 min read

The World’s Most Deadly Serial Killers--and why I could never be one

In response to a bad joke by a standup comedian who said he could never be a child molester because he didn’t have the money to buy an...

kweiquartey

Jan 18, 20225 min read

LAST SEEN IN LAPAZ

LAST SEEN IN LAPAZ hit shelves on Feb 7, 2023. Originally, it was slated for June 2022 pub date, but another year of Covid severely...

kweiquartey

Dec 30, 20212 min read

Understanding Omicron: The New COVID-19 Variant

What is Omicron? On November 24, 2021, scientists in South Africa discovered a new variant of the COVID-19 virus named Omicron...

kweiquartey

Dec 7, 20212 min read

Make a Difference this Christmas

Whereas in the USA we have the luxury of arguing futilely about whether to ban the masterful Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Beloved, by...

kweiquartey

Nov 21, 20215 min read

Why there's no Halloween in Africa

Like many celebrations throughout the year, the meaning of Halloween has morphed over the centuries and lost its original meaning. As...

kweiquartey

Oct 28, 20214 min read

A Tangled Web

My two months in West Africa--Nigeria, Niger, and Ghana--were spent researching for my next Emma Djan novel, LAST SEEN IN LAPAZ (LSIL)....

kweiquartey

Sep 28, 20215 min read

Travels in Niger--Part 3

Getting oriented On July 13, 2021, I left Nigeria, where the chaos at Lagos Airport had me worried I wouldn't get on the plane,...

kweiquartey

Sep 14, 20219 min read

Travels in Niger--Part Two

The French In Africa--It's Complicated France in Algeria The French connection to Africa dates back to at least the seventeenth century,...

kweiquartey

Aug 28, 202111 min read

USA v GHANA

You remember those essay exams where they asked you to compare and contrast two different elements, states, circumstances, phenomena,...

kweiquartey

Aug 18, 20211 min read

Travels in Niger: Part One

How the West continues to tarnish an African nation The basics The Republic of Niger is named after the Niger River. Bordered by Benin,...

kweiquartey

Aug 2, 20218 min read

Travels in Nigeria--Part Two

I'm writing this blog in Niger, having left Nigeria. At the moment I'm in Agadez, some six hundred miles from Niamey, the capital, so...

kweiquartey

Jul 18, 20214 min read

Nigeria: The Good and the Bad--Part One

My next novel, LAST SEEN IN LAPAZ, scheduled for release in June 2022, tackles the very difficult and, quite frankly, heartbreaking...

kweiquartey

Jul 10, 20213 min read

LET THE TRAVELS BEGIN (AGAIN)

Now fully vaccinated with the Moderna vaccine, I am once again ready to travel, and this season will be a busy one. Of course, it was...

kweiquartey

Jun 8, 20214 min read

In Praise of Multitasking Mothers

Mother's Day is a celebration of our mothers, motherhood, and the maternal bonds that form us from conception really. We have Anna Maria...

kweiquartey

May 8, 20212 min read

Yaa Asantewaa and the War of the Golden Stool

March was International Women's History Month, so on this final day I'm just in time to scrape under the wire to introduce a remarkable...

Travels to Ghana

kweiquartey

Mar 31, 20211 min read

The Food In My Novels: Part Two

In my last post, we saw some Ghanaian dishes that show up in my novels. But wait, there's more! There was too much to include in one...

African Crime Fiction

kweiquartey

Mar 23, 20214 min read

FOOD, GLORIOUS FOOD

When I joined Soho Press and wrote my first draft for MURDER AT CAPE THREE POINTS, whenever I mentioned a particular meal indigenous to...

kweiquartey

Mar 3, 20213 min read

Edgar Allan Poe

THE MISSING AMERICAN (Book photo: Kwei Quartey; background, Enchanted Garden at Edgar Allan Poe by Alfred Wekelo/Shutterstock) On January...

kweiquartey

Feb 16, 20215 min read

INSIDE QUARTEY'S BRAIN

Soho Press published an interview with me on their website and I've posted it below: (If any questions come to your mind as you read,...

kweiquartey

Feb 4, 20212 min read

See Our Privacy Policy