In The Whitewashed Tombs, I aimed to voice and humanize the struggles and resilience of the LGBTQ+ community in Ghana and much of Africa, where some 32 countries have anti-LGBTQ laws, some with the death penalty as punishment…. But, more widely, it’s stunning and tragic that anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment is so prevalent over much of the globe….
Ripped from the heart of the political tensions rising in contemporary Ghana over proposed legislation regarding LGBTQ+ rights, in The Whitewashed Tombs Kwei Quartey creates a murder mystery like none you’ve ever experienced. In the novel, a #Me-Too survivor and relentlessly inquisitive private investigator, Emma Djan, and Djan’s partner investigator, JoJo, investigate a horrific murder of an LBGTQ+ activist. The victim’s death hits a little too close to home for Djan and especially JoJo.
Quartey brings a violation of very basic inalienable human rights under a spotlight within the genre of a murder-mystery. The author’s prose is terse, tense, and sweaty. Crisp dialogue moves the plot rapidly, engrossing the reader from the very start and never loosening up until its denouement. It has traditional noir and mystery elements, but with a subversive edge. Drawing from a rich tradition of mystery novels and authors, including homages to Agatha Christie, Enid Blyton, and African authors such as Achebe, Quartey takes enormous risks in writing this novel. This may be Kwei Quartey’s most personal work to date.
Very often writers have to make a choice as to whether they want to be culturally impactful and literary, or rather create a popular and crowd-pleasing narrative. Kwei has succeeded in both tasks by creating a culturally relevant and responsible work while also telling a thrilling story. This is not an easy task for contemporary authors, particularly those who work in genre fiction such as mysteries, hardboiled, etc.. Along with subversion of the traditional mystery/noir tropes, Quartey also entwines cultural and supernatural elements present in African culture to create a rich tapestry of narrative and social critique. The Whitewashed Tombs is a riveting tear through the fabric of hypocrisy that still exists all over the world.
I was fortunate enough to correspond with Quartey and below is the resulting interview:
Kwei, your novel is timely and relevant regarding current events and politics. Yet, there are many readers who may not be familiar with certain realities in Africa. Can you explain a little about the context of the novel? It is set in Ghana. Are the political elements and controversial law in the novel a reality for Ghana?
The Whitewashed Tombs (TWT) sets its narrative against a backdrop vivid with the cultural and political intricacies of Ghana. The political elements, including the controversial, anti-LGBTQ+ proposed laws depicted in the novel, mirror actual tensions and legislative challenges faced within the country. This novel aims to shed light on these issues, offering readers a window into the complex interplay of tradition, politics, and identity in contemporary Ghanaian society. Albert Camus said, “Fiction is the lie through which we reveal the truth,” so as fictional as TWT is, it is fact-based. At the moment, Ghana’s president hasn’t signed the bill into law, and it’s in limbo. So, TWT remains timely even months after the parliament passed the bill.
It is always interesting to find out the influences of authors. What authors and works have influenced you the most in your writing?
A blend of classic and contemporary authors has shaped my writing. Writers like Arthur Conan Doyle, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie laid the foundational stones of mystery during my childhood that I built on. However, the sharp societal critiques of African writers like Chinua Achebe also influenced my storytelling, infusing it with a tapestry of cultural and historical consciousness
Who are the team of Emma Djan and Jojo based on? How did you come up with these characters? Are they similar to other sleuths in other mystery novels? How might they be different than your usual sleuths?
Emma Djan (the “D” is silent) is a creation of the #MeToo movement. Just at the time I was developing her as a character, the high-profile cases of assaults on women were at their height. She’s a millennial who grew from a timid woman in a male-dominated profession to the assertive detective she is now. Emma became a private investigator at the Sowah Agency as a result of her own nightmarish Me Too movement. Jojo is her closeted gay coworker who has revealed his secret only to Emma. They work well together because they have mutual trust and affection. That Jojo is gay only came to me in a flash while I was writing the novel preceding TWT, although I probably subconsciously knew it before then. As a pair of investigators, they may differ from their counterparts in detective fiction in that they may not work together contemporaneously on a particular case, as happens in TWT, and there is certainly not the Holmes-Watson relationship where the master detective often perceives clues while Watson remains flummoxed.
How is this novel different than the other Emma Djan books in the series?
It’s the first in the series where LGBTQ+ rights take center stage. This novel also marks a distinctive evolution in Emma Djan as she becomes more assertive in her work. Because Jojo is a compromised investigator in that he once dated the murder victim, the case becomes more up close and personal to Emma and me as well. We see through Jojo’s eyes what it’s like to navigate a conservative and homophobic society and the fear of being fired for who he is.
What did you want to express most in this novel regarding the LBGTQ+ community worldwide and for Ghana?
I aimed to voice and humanize the struggles and resilience of the LGBTQ+ community in Ghana and much of Africa, where some 32 countries have anti-LGBTQ laws, some with the death penalty as punishment for having same-sex relationships. But, more widely, it’s stunning and tragic that anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment is so prevalent over much of the globe besides Africa. The novel’s title originates from a Biblical passage in which Jesus exposes the hypocrisy of the Pharisee scribes, and hypocrisy is a prominent element running through the entire story among multiple characters and various levels of society. That is true to form in Ghana.
Where does this novel fit alongside “traditional” mystery novels? How is it different?
Traditional mysteries often rely on a structured format: there’s a crime, clues, and red herrings. A detective methodically uncovers the truth, leading to a resolution. These stories tend to focus on logic, motive, and human nature, with the detective often playing the central role in restoring order by the novel’s end.
The Whitewashed Tombs, however, moves beyond this formula by incorporating elements of “African noir.” In this subgenre, supernatural beliefs and the influence of ancestors and the gods play a role in shaping the investigation. Those phenomena are real in Africa and not relegated to some remote corner of the culture. For example, a detective like Emma Djan must consider the still-existent specter of ritual murder. So, the story then connects deeply to African traditions and spiritual beliefs, which are often absent in many Western mysteries.
The Whitewashed Tombs is more activist in nature than some of its counterparts. It directly confronts pressing social issues, particularly LGBTQ+ rights in Ghana, blending the mystery genre with a call to action.
Can you talk about cultural differences or similarities in Ghana as compared the United States regarding LBGTQ+ communities?
Comparing Ghana and the United States, both nations are grappling with integrating LGBTQ+ rights into their societal fabric. In Ghana, traditional beliefs and the slow pace of legislative change complicate the conflict. In contrast, the United States, while more progressive in some respects, still faces significant disparities and challenges. This novel draws parallels and contrasts between these cultural landscapes, highlighting a global narrative. But another distinguishing aspect of the African LGBTQ+ rights is the false assertion, contrary to firm evidence, that same-sex relationships were not indigenous to the continent before colonization and that Western culture “brought” homosexuality to Africa. Homophobic American right-wing and religious organizations have persuasively imposed that doctrine on African government officials and helped them draft anti-gay legislation in Uganda, Kenya, Ghana, and Nigeria, among others.
What does this novel mean to you personally? How of much of “you” is in this novel?
As a queer Ghanaian-American writer, I have much more at stake in The Whitewashed Tombs than in my previous works. Ghana is a country I’ve always remembered as warm, kind, and welcoming, so the surge of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and the stories of vigilante street justice against gay and trans citizens came as a profound shock, given my views on the importance of universal human rights. A lot of pain is threaded through these pages because the novel explores real struggles that hit close to home. Writing this story was both cathartic and challenging as I wrestled with these conflicting emotions about a place I care about but which has become, in some ways, unrecognizable to me. It reflects not only but also my commitment as a queer African American author to advocate through my writing.
Kwei Quartey will appear on Sunday, November 10, 2024 at NoirCon Palm Springs to discuss The Whitewashed Tombs. To register please visits NoirCon’s page.
William Blick is a film and literary/crime fiction critic; a librarian; and an academic scholar. His work has been featured in Film International, Senses of Cinema, Film Threat, Cineaction, and CinemaRetro, and he is a frequent contributor to Retreats from Oblivion: The Journal of Noircon. His crime fiction has been featured in Close to the Bone, Pulp Metal Magazine, Out of the Gutter, and others. He is an Assistant Professor/Librarian for the City University of New York.
Retreats from Oblivion: The Journal of NoirCon 