Goodreads has announced nominations for its 2017 awards, and four authors having massively successful years—Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Nnedi Okorafor, Lesley Nneka Arimah and Ayobami Adebayo—are nominated.
The awards are voted for by readers.
Nnedi Okorafor, who has exploded onto a new level of fame this year, is nominated in the Science Fiction Category for Home, a sequel to Binti. After Binti was shortlisted for Best Novella at the inaugural Nommo Awards, she was tapped by Random House’s sci-fi imprint, Del Rey, to contribute to Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View—a collection of stories that explores the perspective of minor characters in the Star Wars saga. Okorafor became pop culture news in July when her novel, Who Fears Death, was picked for TV adaptation by HBO, with George R.R. Martins—author of the A Song of Fire and Ice book series adapted as the TV series Game of Thrones—as executive producer. She was subsequently named in Entertainment Weekly‘s power list of fantasy and science fiction authors, and was among TED Global’s 2017 Speakers. She snagged a deal to write three issues for Marvel’s Black Panther series, to be published as Black Panther: Long Live the King. Most recently, she contributed to The Manchester Review‘s issue 18 which focused on African speculative fiction.
Vote for her HERE.
Lesley Nneka Arimah is nominated in the Fiction Category for her short story collection, What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky. In April, her short story, “Who Will Greet You at Home?,” was shortlisted for Best Short Story at the inaugural Nommo Awards. In May, the story was then shortlisted for the Caine Prize. In June, one of the stories in the collection,”Glory,” won her an O.Henry Prize. In September, Arimah became the fourth African fiction writer to be picked for the US National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” list. What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky this morning won the $50,000 Kirkus Prize for Fiction, beating Booker Prize finalist Mohsin Hamid and English PEN Deputy President Hari Kunzru, and is currently a finalist for the Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize.
Vote for her HERE.
Ayobami Adebayo is nominated in the Debut Goodreads Author Category for her novel, Stay with Me. In April, the novel made Adebayo the fourth African novelist to be shortlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, where she was tipped as second favourite to win. In August, in what was her last book review for The New York Times, Stay with Me was described by career-making critic Michiko Kakutani as “powerfully magnetic,” and Adebayo as an “exceptional storyteller” who “writes not just with extraordinary grace but with genuine wisdom.” In September, Adebayo was interviewed by The Paris Review.
Vote for her HERE.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is nominated in the Nonfiction Category for Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions. It is the second awards recognition for the 9,000-word booklet, which began its life as a Facebook post, following its French edition’s win of the 2017 Le Grand Prix De L’héroïne Madame Figaro in the Nonfiction Category. That award, in July, was Adichie’s very first for a nonfiction work and her fourth of 2017 overall, after her “One Book, One New York” win for Americanah in March, her “One Maryland, One Book” win for Purple Hibiscus in April, and her Mary McCarthy Award in June. If she wins this Goodreads award, it would be the fifth for a woman having her most successful year yet.
Vote for her HERE.
Congratulations to Nnedi, Lesley, Ayobami and Chimamanda.
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