Nigeria’s Chinelo Okparanta has a new novel forthcoming. Titled Harry Sylvester Bird, the book is her third offering, following the story collection Happiness, Like Water (2013) and the novel Under the Udala Trees (2015).

The new novel was pitched to Pilar Garcia-Brown at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt by Chinelo’s agent Jacqueline Ko at The Wylie Agency (NA), reports Publishers Marketplace. It is part of a two-book deal, and will be published in Spring, 2022.

The premise of the novel, according to PM, is “a young white man’s education and miseducation in contemporary America—from his conservative upbringing in rural Pennsylvania to his various awakenings in New York City where he attempts to confront his privilege—exploring the nation’s state of confusion around white supremacy and delving into the most pressing anxieties of our time.”

One of Africa’s most established contemporary authors, Chinelo Okparanta is the author of two celebrated works of fiction and the winner of numerous awards including a Lambda Award, an O. Henry Prize, and was a finalist for the Caine Prize and Etisalat Prize. In 2017, she was named on Granta’s list of ‘Best Young American Novelists”.