In “The Edge of Water,” A Prophecy Unravels a Nigerian Family’s Pursuit of the American Dream

Olufunke Grace Bankole’s debut novel The Edge of Water opens with a prophecy: “A storm is coming.” The order of things, the Iyanifa tells us, will be disrupted by a soul who defies her fate.  What follows is the story of three generations of Nigerian and Nigerian American women: Esther, who dreams of a different […] The post In “The Edge of Water,” A Prophecy Unravels a Nigerian Family’s Pursuit of the American Dream appeared first on Electric Literature. Continue reading at 'Electric Literature'

[ Electric Literature | 2025-02-04 12:00:00 UTC ]

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An Indigenous Writer Discovers New and Old Ways to Connect With the Land and With Each Other

Joshua Whitehead can’t be held by genre. Following on the success of his Lambda Literary Award winning novel Jonny Appleseed and poetry collection full-metal indigiqueer, Making Love with the Land is Whitehead’s first full-length work of creative nonfiction. But to describe this book as merely... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-11-23 12:00:00 UTC ]
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We Partied With Padma Lakshmi, Union Supporter, at the National Book Awards

The National Books Awards returned in full force on November 16, 2022 for a night of in-person glitz after two years of virtual ceremonies. In front of white tents where the literati gathered for photos on the red carpet, publishing workers with the HarperCollins Union, standing in the cold,... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-11-18 12:06:00 UTC ]
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Book Deals: Week of November 21, 2022

The editor-in-chief of Electric Literature sells a debut novel to Random House, Europa takes on a novel by the director of the Turin Book Fair, and more. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-11-18 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Leaving the Church to Find Spiritual Nourishment

The memoir Heretic opens with Jeanna Kadlec boarding a bus to the Middlesex County Courthouse in Massachusetts, where she is filing for divorce against her husband, an Evangelical Christian, and pastor’s son to boot. Kadlec is twenty-five and exhausted from the labor of suppressing her... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-11-17 12:05:00 UTC ]
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Desperate Writer Query Template*

Esteemed Agent, I’m seeking representation for my [300,000-word rhyming memoir / novel-in-grocery-coupons / famous literary graves calendar**] which is a cross between [Maid and Green Eggs and Ham / a bag of Halloween candy and that novel-in-texts you just sold / an apple watch and a mortuary... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-11-11 12:05:00 UTC ]
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I’m Proud of My Queer Fandom

The first time I felt possessed by a fantasy series, I was fifteen. It was 2004, and from my family’s small computer room, I spent the after-dinner hours in a web forum devoted to NC-17 Harry Potter fanfiction. This was the same room where my brother had constructed a secret liquor cabinet from... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-11-01 11:05:00 UTC ]
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Louise Kennedy’s Debut Novel Taps Into Her Childhood Amid the Troubles

The book, “Trespasses,” captures the texture of life in Northern Ireland — details, objects and images that carry “incredible emotional weight.” Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2022-10-31 16:21:50 UTC ]
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Book Deals: Week of October 31, 2022

William Morrow bets on a debut novel from Victoria Benton Frank, Harlan Coben re-ups at Grand Central, and more. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-10-28 04:00:00 UTC ]
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How Do You Escape If Your Body Is the Prison?

Endometriosis is classified by Mayo Clinic as a “common” condition, “treatable by a medical professional.” And yet, when Emma Bolden began experiencing aggressive symptoms of the illness in elementary school, she was treated for decades by doctors who neither believed her account of her... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-10-27 11:05:00 UTC ]
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The Sex is Not Frivolous

I have long been fascinated by books about the early years of the AIDS crisis. Paul Monette’s Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir from 1988 remains a cherished work; last year’s Let the Record Show by Sarah Schulman and It Was Vulgar and It Was Beautiful by Jack Lowery provided crucial insights into... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-10-26 11:00:00 UTC ]
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The Eerie Experience of Watching My Science Fiction Story Become Real

On May 13, I finally got to read my wayward science fiction story “It Is the Voice That Unnerves Me” in The Dread Machine. I had been submitting the story since the spring of 2019, and had thought many times about consigning it to the “retired” list. I knew every word, sentence and section break... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-10-20 11:05:00 UTC ]
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Cover reveal: Stephen Buoro’s The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa.

Literary Hub is pleased to reveal the cover for Stephen Buoro’s debut novel The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa, which will be published by Bloomsbury in April 2023. Here’s how the publisher describes the novel: Andrew Aziza is a fifteen-year-old boy living in Kontagora in Northern... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-10-19 13:30:34 UTC ]
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A Queer Black Anarchist’s Journey to Find Liberation in America and Abroad

Prince Shakur’s debut memoir When They Tell You to Be Good starts with an argument between him and his mother which recalls the image of his father’s murder, a man he never got to know. In unflinchingly honest detail Shakur traces his own journey of self actualization as a queer, Black Jamaican... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-10-13 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Tom Hanks announces ‘wildly ambitious’ first novel

The Making of Another Motion Picture Masterpiece spans 80 years and is said to be ‘thoughtful, poignant and hugely entertaining’Oscar winner Tom Hanks’s debut novel has been announced, and is due out next year. The book, Hanks’s second foray into fiction – he published a short story collection... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2022-09-27 14:01:40 UTC ]
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Review: The follow-up to Namwali Serpell's debut novel is less grand — and better for it

Critics raved over 'The Old Drift,' Namwali Serpell's epic debut novel. Our critic prefers her more difficult, intimate follow-up, 'The Furrows.' Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2022-09-27 13:00:37 UTC ]
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Isle McElroy Asks Torrey Peters “What Comes Next?”

It’s difficult to say anything that hasn’t already been said about Torrey Peters’s debut novel, Detransition, Baby. It won the PEN/Hemingway Award, was a national bestseller, a NYT Notable Book, and named a Book of the Year by more publications than my word count limit will let me include. Not... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-09-26 11:05:00 UTC ]
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Recommended reading: Hilary Mantel’s review of Kate Atkinson’s debut novel.

By the time I read Hilary Mantel’s 1996 review of Kate Atkinson’s debut novel Behind the Scenes at the Museum in the London Review of Books, the novel had been a favorite of mine for over a decade. My mother gave me the book when I was in high school—both of us entirely unaware of […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-09-23 14:57:31 UTC ]
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7 Books Set in Pakistan

On her first day at an American high school, the protagonist of my novel, Hira, faces a dilemma. She considers herself well-read, but as she rifles through a thick textbook in her English Literature class, she realizes that none of the American authors in there are familiar to her. It is 2010,... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-09-22 11:00:00 UTC ]
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There’s No Place Like Grandma’s Abandoned Island

Meghan Gilliss’ debut novel Lungfish follows Tuck, her husband Paul, and their toddler Agnes as they all squat on Tuck’s dead grandmother’s island in the Gulf of Maine after running out of money. While Paul undergoes substance withdrawal in the rustic house, Tuck and Agnes survive on whatever... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-09-13 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Book Deals: Week of September 12, 2022

Angela Merkel’s memoir goes to St Martin’s, Berkley buys a debut novel by a former American Ballet Theatre ballerina, and more. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-09-09 04:00:00 UTC ]
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