Hawa Jande Golakai was born in Frankfurt, Germany, and spent her childhood in her homeland of Liberia, later living in several African countries when her family fled the civil war. Her crime debut, The Lazarus Effect, was nominated for three literary awards, and published in the UK in May 2016 by Cassava Republic Press. Hawa […]
Tag Archives: granta
The Brittle Paper Award for Creative Nonfiction/Memoir: Meet the Nominees
To mark our seventh anniversary on August 1, 2017, we announced the inaugural Brittle Paper Literary Awards, to recognize the finest, original pieces of African writing published online. The awards come in five categories: Fiction, Poetry, Creative Nonfiction/Memoir, Essays/Think Pieces, and the Anniversary Award for works published on our blog. The winners in the fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction/memoir and essays/think […]
Dinaw Mengestu, Chinelo Okparanta and Yaa Gyasi Listed among Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists
Granta has released its prestigious once-in-a-decade Best of Young American Novelists list and it includes Ethiopia’s Dinaw Mengestu, Nigeria’s Chinelo Okparanta, and Ghana’s Yaa Gyasi. The 21-writer list, regarded as one of the most accurate and influential predictors of literary impact, is in its third publication. First released in 1997, it was followed by another […]
Easter Reading Gift: Granta Just Unlocked Taiye Selasi’s Beautiful 2011 Short Story “The Sex Lives of African Girls”
Before her acclaimed debut novel Ghana Must Go dropped in 2013, we first had a taste of Taiye Selasi’s fiction in 2011, in a short story published in Granta‘s Summer 2011 The F Word issue, a breathlessly musical thing titled “The Sex Lives of African Girls.” Told in the second person, and centered around a young girl’s observation […]
African Literary Digest: 14 Must-Reads from February, 2017
Every month, we compile a list of reads from around the internet that we find illuminating. For January, we chose eight pieces. For February, we have fourteen items. They include non-fiction, fiction, essays, speeches, and even tweets. While numbered, this list is unranked. *** 1. “Since Everything Was Suddening into a Hurricane” | By Binyavanaga Wainaina | Granta | Non-fiction […]
Binyavanga Wainaina’s Granta Essay Is Beautifully Experimental
Binyavanga Wainaina has a new essay in Granta‘s latest travel issue. The title of the essay is “Since Everything Was Suddening into a Hurricane.” Binyavanga writes about his experience with stroke and his journey to Nairobi— accompanied by his lover—to patch things up with his father. We haven’t had an essay from Binyavanga in a […]
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