Each anthology in Akashic Books’ noir series is “set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the respective city” and includes new fiction by writers from the country. Last year, the series published Lagos Noir, for Nigeria, edited by Chris Abani and featuring work by Nnedi Okorafor, Sarah Ladipo Manyika, E.C. Osondu, Jude Dibia, Chika […]
Tag Archives: maaza mengiste
Maaza Mengiste’s Forthcoming Novel, The Shadow King, Set During the Italian Invasion of 1935, Centers the Ethiopian Women Who Have Been Ignored in Historical Records
In 2017, we ran a feature on why the Ethiopian writer Maaza Mengiste, who debuted with the acclaimed Beneath the Lion’s Gaze (2010), threw away the first draft of her second novel. That novel, The Shadow King, is now forthcoming from Norton on 24 September 2019. The 448 page book, which has earned an enthusiastic reception […]
PHOTOS | The Asmara Addis Literary Festival in Exile: a Pan-African Event for Feminism, Free Love, and Radical Ideas
The inaugural Asmara Addis Literary Festival in Exile was held from 8–10 February 2019, in Brussels, Belgium. Founded by Eritrean-Ethiopian novelist Sulaiman Addonia, author of The Consequences of Love (2009) and Silence Is My Mother Tongue (2018), the Festival is “a new pan-African literary event with feminist principles at its heart.” It was organized in collaboration with BOZAR, in […]
Helon Habila and Maaza Mengiste to Judge Fall For The Book’s New American Voices Award
Helona Habila and Maaza Mengiste have been announced as judges for the Institute for Immigration Research New American Voices Award. The novelists will preside over submissions alongside Booker and Baileys Prize finalist Madeleine Thien. Created by Fall for the Book, Northern Virginia’s oldest literary festival, to mark its 20th anniversary, the Institute for Immigration Research […]
Why Maaza Mengiste Threw Away the First Draft of Her Second Novel
Maaza Mengiste might have just one novel published so far, in 2010, but she is one of the most visible Ethiopian writers on the international scene. That novel, Beneath the Lion’s Gaze, is an empathetic unraveling of the 1974 Ethiopian Revolution through the eyes of a father and his two sons. Here is a description […]
The 12 African Authors Participating in the 2017 PEN World Voices Festival
The 2017 PEN World Voices Festival has begun in New York. The 2015 festival, which focused on African literature, was co-curated by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Here is a description of the 2017 festival on PEN’s Website. The thirteenth annual PEN World Voices Festival will take on some of the vital issues of the Trump-era, with […]
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