Interviews Matthew Davis Ugandan novelist and short-story writer Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s first novel, Kintu, won the Kwani Manuscript Project in 2013 and was longlisted for the Etisalat Prize in 2014. She was awarded the 2014 Commonwealth Short-Story Prize for her story Lets Tell This Story Properly, published by Granta, and the prestigious Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction 2018 to support her writing. Her first full story collection, Manchester Happened, was published by Oneworld in May 2019. Retitled Let’s Tell This Story Properly, the collection was published in the US in July 2019. She lives in Manchester with her husband and son and lectures in creative writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. While Makumbi was a fellow at the Alan Cheuse International Writers Center at George Mason University this past spring, she talked with Matthew Davis, the center’s founding director. Here they discuss how westerners and Africans read African literature differently, writing for Ugandans, and how eighteen years in England has changed her. Matthew Davis: Jennifer, welcome. I want to start by discussing your novel, Kintu, which is in many ways a modern classic of world literature. It begins in 1750, when Kintu Kidda sets out for the capital to pledge allegiance to the new leader of the Buganda kingdom. The novel follows the descendants of Kintu as they struggle with a curse he unleashed as he made his way to the capital in the... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'
[ World Literature Today | 2019-08-06 13:42:31 UTC ]
A powerhouse of the genre, she published around 100 short stories and 17 novels, one of which was adapted into the acclaimed film “The Lady Vanishes.” Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2025-04-17 22:03:17 UTC ]
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Viet Thanh Nguyen explains why most American literature is the literature of empire. | Lit Hub Criticism Eleanor Lanahan reflects on the literary legacy of The Great Gatsby, her grandfather’s timeless novel, as it turns 100. | Lit Hub Biography Sarah Viren and Vauhini Vara discuss voice, tech,... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
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Viet Thanh Nguyen explains why most American literature is the literature of empire. | Lit Hub Criticism Moeen Farrokhi on translating literature into Farsi and life into English. | Lit Hub On Translation How unraveling a short story into a novel gave Natalia Theodoridou “permission to indulge... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
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April’s 10 best books range from short stories set in LA to a climate-change novel to a reappraisal of the American Revolution and its effects on other countries. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
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One way to understand the dilemma of contemporary American literature in the age of Donald Trump is to see it as an imperial literature. The United States is a different kind of empire, exerting global hegemonic power through hundreds of military bases and a network of alliances, trade... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
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When I was nine years old my mother temporarily moved from our home in Los Angeles to New York City for a job in private banking. The family lore is that I wrote her letters, including short stories about a family of hamsters. I don’t remember what I was feeling then or why I did […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2025-03-25 08:58:26 UTC ]
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New Harper Lee short stories coming this fall, a day in the life of an audiobook narrator, the It Books of March, and more news. Continue reading at Book Riot
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Eight unpublished stories by the To Kill a Mockingbird author will be issued later this year as The Land of Sweet ForeverNever-before-seen short stories by Harper Lee will be published later this year, it has been announced.Eight short stories written before the author started the novel that... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2025-03-04 16:09:02 UTC ]
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Before she published “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Lee had written short stories in which she explored some of its themes and characters. Continue reading at The New York Times
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Fall in love with this collection of short stories centering Indigenous love and what it is to make a relationship. Continue reading at Book Riot
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The longlist for the International Booker Prize 2025 “celebrates the best works of long-form fiction or collections of short stories ... Continue reading at Book Riot
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Every week, our weekly magazine The Commuter publishes a new work of flash fiction, poetry, and graphic narrative. For Black History Month, we’re looking to the archives for some of our favorite poetry and stories by Black writers, all available to read for free online. From Tara Campbell’s... Continue reading at Electric Literature
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Black American literature starts with anti-literacy laws, then goes on to produce some of the most influential writers in the English language. Continue reading at Book Riot
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Mavis Gallant wrote short stories full of brutal humor that examined the hell of other people. Continue reading at The New York Times
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Lou Mathews, author of "L.A. Breakdown" and "Shaky Town," is back with "Hollywoodski," a novelized collection of short stories about a faded screenwriter. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
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Mexican Writer Guadalupe Nettel to Headline Puterbaugh Festival at OU, by the Editors of WLT News and Events [email protected] Mon, 01/13/2025 - 09:20 Author photo by Germán NájeraThe 2025 Puterbaugh Lit Fest will return to the University of... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2025-01-13 15:20:12 UTC ]
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My first book had been something of an accident—two or three short stories that ran together unexpectedly, hit the 25,000-word mark, and found a publisher almost immediately. It happened so fast, I hadn’t really had time to think about what I was doing. Like a lot of indie presses in 2015, my... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
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