Ghanaian-American author Naakai Addy has a debut novel in the works titled Somewhere Soft to Land that will explore the tensions that can creep into female friendships. It will be published by Ballantine Books, a part of the Random House Group.

Addy’s debut novel follows ex-best friends who are brought back together by the sudden death of one’s newborn child and the accusations that surround it. This powerful work of fiction reckons with the complicated, and sometimes fraught, friendship between women.

According to Publisher’s Marketplace, Addy’s Somewhere Soft to Land was pitched as “offering the humorous social commentary of Queen and I May Destroy You and the moral curiosity of Such a Fun Age“. The international rights and film/TV rights are held by William Morris Endeavor.

Naakai Addy is a Ghanaian-American writer, digital media artist, and marketer. Addy grew up in a Ghanaian-American family in Southern California. She studied Linguistics and Spanish at the University of St. Andrews and earned her B.A. from Wesleyan University. She received her M.Phil. in Creative Writing in the Trinity Oscar Wilde Centre and won the Molly Owen Prize through Trinity College, Dublin.

Addy writes long-form fiction, short stories, and essays that center on themes of black womanhood, disability, experiences of otherness, and queerness and sexuality in the African diaspora. Her short story “3-Step Face Mask” won in the nonfiction category in the 2020 West Virginia Writers Contest. She is currently a Writer-in-Resident at the NES Artist Residency in Iceland.

Congrats to Addy on her debut novel!