Namwali Serpell’s The Old Drift and Tope Folarin’s A Particular Kind of Black Man have been longlisted for the 2019 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, “awarded to the best debut novel of the year.” Both writers won the Caine Prize, in 2015 and 2013, respectively. Serpell’s novel has been a massive hit with critics, with […]
Tag Archives: zambian literature
Namwali Serpell on Using a Swarm of Mosquitoes as Narrator in Her New Novel, The Old Drift
Namwali Serpell’s debut novel The Old Drift has been a hit with critics. Hailed as the Great Zambian Novel and reviewed for The New York Times Review of Books by Salman Rushdie, it has been high on reading lists. Recently, the UC Berkeley associate professor of literature was featured on the podcast Reading Women, a […]
Mubanga Kalimamukwento Wins 2019 Kalemba Short Story Prize for Zambian Writing
The 2019 Kalemba Short Story Prize has gone to Mubanga Kalimamukwento, for her short story, “Inswa,” described by the judges as “resonant and gripping.” The $1000 prize, funded and administered by the publishing company Ukusefya WORDS, is awarded to the best work of original and unpublished short fiction written in English by a Zambian, and is in its second […]
Zambia’s Mbozi Haimbe Awarded 2019 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for Africa Region
Zambia’s Mbozi Haimbe has been awarded the 2019 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for Africa Region, for her “Madam’s Sister.” She is the second Zambian to receive a Commonwealth Prize, following Ellen Banda-Aaku’s 2007 win of the defunct Commonwealth Short Story Competition, for “Sozi’s Box.” The short story, like those of the four other winners for […]
Mubanga Kalimamukwento’s Dinaane Debut Fiction Award-winning Novel, The Mourning Bird, Is an Empowering Portrait of Modern Zambia | Read an Excerpt
The Zambian writer Mubanga Kalimamukwento’s novel The Mourning Bird recently received the 2019 Dinaane Debut Fiction Award. In addition to the R35,000 prize money, her book will be released by Jacana Media on 1 June 2019 and will be “supported by Exclusive Books through its Homebru campaign.” Here is a description of the novel: When […]
Namwali Serpell’s The Old Drift, Hailed as the Great Zambian Novel, Is a Multigenerational Tale Blending History and Science Fiction
Quite a lot is happening ahead of the release of The Old Drift, Namwali Serpell’s debut novel. Justifiably so as she is one of our best prose stylists. Forthcoming on 26 March 2019 from Penguin Random House imprint Hogarth, the 576-page The Old Drift is set on the Zambezi River and tells the story of […]
Namwali Serpell on the Beauty and Uses of Being an Outsider
Some of you may remember Namwali Serpell as the 2015 winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing. She teaches American literature at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2o14, her second book Seven Modes of Uncertainty was published by Harvard University Press. Last week, a video of her sharing her experience as an outsider was […]
Ellen Banda on Writing Children’s Fiction | Interviewed by Caleb Adebayo
Ellen Banda-Aaku is a published and award-winning writer of books for children and short stories. Her first book for children, Wandi’s Little Voice won the 2004 Macmillan Writers’ Prize for Africa. Beyond being a writer for children, she also writes adult fiction. Patchwork, one of her published works and an award-winning novel is a work […]
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