Sarah Ladipo Manyika.

Sarah Ladipo Manyika’s second novel, Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun, and Zinzi Clemmons’ debut novel, What We Lose, have been shortlisted for the 2018 California Book Awards, in the Fiction and First Fiction categories, respectively.

Founded in 1931, the California Book Awards, in the U.S., “recognize the state’s best writers and illuminate the wealth and diversity of literature written in California.” Monetary prizes are given in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, juvenile literature, young adult literature, and first work of fiction.

Image from YouTube.

Manyika’s Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun, which became the first African novel to be shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize in 2016, is up against Andrew Sean Greer’s Less, Percival Everett’s So Much Blue, Josh Weil’s The Age of Perpetual Light, and Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Refugees.

Clemmons’ What We Lose will be competing against Rachel Khong’s Goodbye, Vitamin, Jess Arndt’s Large Animals, and Lindsey Lee Johnson’s The Most Dangerous Place on Earth.

Sarah Ladipo Manyika is currently Books Editor at OZY.

Congratulations to Sarah Ladipo Manyika and Zinzi Clemmons.

See the other finalists HERE.