MyWeku

Kwei Quartey, a practicing physician, was born and raised in Ghana by a Ghanaian father and an African American mother.

Kwei Quartey’s first novel — “Wife of the Gods: An Inspector Darko Dawson Mystery” is set in Ghana, the action moves compellingly back and forth between the capital city of Accra and a town in the Volta Region. Wife of the Gods brings the culture and beauty of its setting brilliantly to life. For fans of Alexander McCall Smith comes a debut mystery novel that introduces a marvelously intuitive detective and a rich cast of characters.

“It’s an absolute gem of a first novel and the sort of book that will delight not only hard-core mystery fans, but also those who visit the genre only casually..[It] is not simply an extraordinarily well-crafted mystery; it’s also an extremely well-structured and deftly written novel.. Wife of the Gods undoubtedly will be compared with Alexander McCall Smith’s phenomenally successful “No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” series, but Quartey’s debut is — to this reader, at least — a far richer and more sophisticated experience. The author is working on a second novel and, if it lives up to this one’s promise, mystery fans have an important new voice to savor.
Tim Rutten, Los Angeles Times

MyWeku: Tell us about “Wife of the Gods” and what inspired you to write it?

KQ: It’s a murder mystery set in Ghana. Southern Africa is now fairly well represented in crime fiction. It’s time for West Africa to get some attention. A young medical student, Gladys Mensah, is found dead in the forest adjacent to a rural town called Ketanu, and Accra CID Inspector Darko Dawson is dispatched to solve the crime. Not only must he deal with Ketanu’s strong beliefs in witchcraft and age-old customs, he has to face the emotional pain of his mother’s disappearance from the same town 25 years prior.

At the turn of the millennium, I had been writing crime fiction for years without much success. I was in Paris for a few days when I happened on a TV documentary featuring an Ivorian detective trying to solve a murder in a small rural village. He used superstition and threats of witchcraft to manipulate suspects into confessing. I decided to try the same idea and set a murder story in Ghana. It was later on I added to the story the practice of trokosi, in which girls are sent to serve at a shrine to atone for a crime committed by a family member. This practice is not widespread in Ghana, I hasten to add, but it dovetailed well with what I was writing, so I incorporated it.

MW: “Wife of the Gods” has some pretty realistic situations that are as Ghanaian as apple pie is American. Given that you left Ghana many years ago, how did you manage to craft such an authentic masterpiece?

KQ: I’m flattered, thank you. I should say in all honesty that like many fictional works, the story shouldn’t be regarded as an infallible representation of Ghana’s ethnographic details, which are quite complex. Having said that, certain cultural nuances never leave one’s memory, especially recollections of one’s childhood. So even being away from the country for many years couldn’t erase my rich experiences in Ghana. I did have to go to Ghana in February 2008 to do some basic research, since so much in Ghana had changed, and for the next novel, I will be doing the same.

MyWeku: Africa has produced incredibly gifted and accomplished writers like Chinua Achebe and Ayi Kwei Armah. What authors (African and/or non-African) have influenced you the most?

KQ: Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart” and Ayi Kwei Armah’s “The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born” are divine. Of course, I would love to be able to write like that! However, crime fiction has always been my love since I was a kid of eight or nine, when I used to write novelettes for family to read. More than anyone else, I think Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s creation Sherlock Holmes impressed me and inspired me. I wish there had been African crime fiction to spark my imagination when I was growing up, but what I had were the mystery series by prolific British children’s writer Enid Blyton, and other writers like John Creasey.

MyWeku: Will the detective work of Darko in “Wife of the Gods” continue in your next novel or are you planning a surprise in your next novel?

KQ: Yes, we will be seeing Darko in the next novel and God willing for many more. The next novel is called CHILDREN OF THE STREET. In this, the discovery of a corpse plunges Darko into the brutal environment of one of Accra’s largest slums. I’m more than halfway through the first draft and I’m eager to finish. I will likely be visiting Ghana for research during the month of March 2010.

 

MyWeku: “My weku” as you may know means “my family”. Our aim at Myweku.com is to showcase emerging and established Africans and non-Africans with a connection to Africa, across a range of areas. We hope that they in turn through their achievements will showcase Africa in all its glory. As a physician and an author what three things would you, if you had a magic wand, change for the better on our continent?

KQ: (i) As a physician, my heart is pained by the ravages of infectious disease in sub-Saharan Africa. Look at how long malaria has been around taking its toll on Africans. I hope for a day in the future when we have medicine and prevention accessible to all.

(ii) Education and literacy are two sides of a golden coin that allows a people to progress. The children of the street that I talk about in my second novel should all be in school learning, not selling trinkets on the roadways. Right now, there are schools in Ghana, including my alma mater Accra Academy, that seriously lack the funding necessary to bring our kids into the 21^st century, and the clock is ticking. The farther we get left behind, the harder it is to catch up.

(iii) Ethnic strife simply rips the continent apart. There’s no money for development but there’s enough for arms? It doesn’t make any sense. Although not in every corner of the continent, there are many regions of Africa where people desperately need potable water and kids pick around in the dirt for grains of corn, all this at the same time that soldiers rampage and annihilate villages. It’s too sad for words.

MyWeku: On your last visit to Ghana, you spoke to 1500 students at your Alma mater – Accra Academy. You described the experience as “marvelous”. To what extent did your old school shape who you are today and what and how can alumni (especially those in the diaspora) do to support their high schools better across Africa?

KQ: Accra Academy was very important to me in my education. Many of my teachers were excellent, including my instructors in English. I was a serious student, and the school stimulated me tremendously. I have fond memories of the place. Over the past two years, the U.S. Accra Academy alumni have made attempts to assist the school with getting their IT program up and running, but I regret to say that our efforts haven’t been successful for a variety of reasons. One of the challenges has been opening and maintaining the lines of communication with the school officials. It’s been frustrating, to say the least. It’s almost as if we need an ambassador or liaison between the U.S. and Ghana sides of the equation.

In general I feel all alumni in the diaspora should make a good-faith effort to help their Alma maters in Africa financially and in any other way they can. For instance, I’ve set aside about a hundred copies of my novel WIFE OF THE GODS that I purchased myself and that I hope to send to the students of Accra Academy as soon as I’m assured that their library is back in shape with a reliable librarian. In the present world economy, I’m certain that successive generations at our schools won’t get the best quality of education without private help from alumni.

MyWeku: Tell us about your plans for the future and what advice would you give to aspiring authors especially in your genre?

KQ: I plan to keep on writing as long as I’m able, and I’m looking forward to it because I love it. I will likely keep practicing medicine as well for some time, although I would like to cut back on some hours. For aspiring authors, don’t stop trying. You’re human and so there are times when you’ll feel discouraged, but don’t forget all those rejection letters editors and agents sent to Faulkner and Hemmingway.

MyWeku: Anything else you’d like to add?

KQ: My agent and I are making arrangements with Random House, my publisher, to have English language rights available to Ghana so that the next Darko novel, CHILDREN OF THE STREETS, can be published by a Ghanaian press to make it widely available in Ghana at an affordable price. Stick with me, and I’ll endeavor to keep writing books that will inform and entertain.