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 nonbinary teenager on their way home from an eating -disorder treatment center who tries to convince a stranger she is not a vampire, an aspiring fashion designer/dry-cleaning worker who develops an obsession with a customer, a community of people with Hansen’s disease that welcome and attempt... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2022-01-27 12:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Independent press Scratch Books, "dedicated to the art of the short story", is to launch in London in March, kicking off with an event featuring authors including Irenosen Okojie and Sarah Hall. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2022-01-24 22:49:58 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Want to be a fly on our bookshelf? These are the novels, short stories, essays and cookbooks that writers and editors are reading this year. Continue reading at The Huffington Post
[ The Huffington Post | 2022-01-24 10:45:02 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Death is a common theme in literature, and many of the finest writers of short fiction have explored the fear, event, and aftermath of death using the short-story form. Below, we select and introduce ten of the very best classic short stories which have death as their theme, ranging from […] Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2022-01-19 15:00:39 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Deadline has reported that Jessica Chastain, through her cutely named production company Freckle Films, has beaten out several others to the TV rights to Jessamine Chan’s The School for Good Mothers. The School for Good Mothers, published this week by Simon & Schuster, is Chan’s debut novel;... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2022-01-05 16:49:39 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Exploring the diversity of The Atlantic’s original fiction: Your weekly guide to the best in books Continue reading at The Atlantic
[ The Atlantic | 2021-12-31 15:24:18 UTC ]
More news stories like this
The stories of the US short-story writer O. Henry, real name William Sydney Porter (1862-1910), are characterised by their irony and by their surprise endings, which became something of a signature of a good O. Henry short story. However, another word that is often used to describe O. Henry’s... Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2021-12-31 15:00:32 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Spanning dreamy teenagers to furious parents, violence to kindness, each of the ten short stories in Five Tuesdays in Winter is rendered with Lily King’s signature longing and wit. We are all learning to carry our grief, this collection argues, yet still hoping to scrape together a few more... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-12-21 12:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
The best stories by the American writer Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) are written in spare, clear prose, using short sentences and plain dialogue. This is a trademark feature of Hemingway’s style in his short stories and novels. But what are Hemingway’s very best stories? He wrote dozens of short... Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2021-12-15 15:00:48 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Novelists and short-story writers have created some classic narratives about man’s best friend, the dog. But what are the very best stories and novels about dogs? Where should we begin in assessing the classic, canonical literature that features dogs? From Homer’s Odyssey onwards – where the... Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2021-12-03 15:00:29 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Interviews Photo by Diane Picchiottino / Unsplash That Famous Abyss (Wunderkammer, 2020) is a book of exclusive interviews with Enrique Vila-Matas by cultural journalist Anna María Iglesia, covering such themes as why write, the places of... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2021-11-29 21:46:44 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Inspired by another Rioter's bookish rituals, I'm trying my own. I wake up earlier than usual to enjoy a slow morning reading short stories. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2021-11-18 11:36:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Interviews Khadija Abdalla Bajaber’s astonishing debut novel, The House of Rust, winner of the inaugural Graywolf Press Africa Prize, arrived in October as if on a magical wave, imbued with an assortment of creatures—human and animal, real and... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2021-11-15 21:42:08 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Take a kaleidoscope, peer inside its lens and turn the dial: the jeweled-mosaic pattern within deforms and reforms anew. Asako Serizawa mirrored her debut short story collection Inheritors after this complex design. Out of chronological sequence, the thirteen short stories locate twelve related... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-11-11 12:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
These free short stories by your favorite authors will entice and enchant you with bookkeeping aliens, ant writing, and sentient drones. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2021-11-10 11:34:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
The 2021 shortlists have been revealed for the Staunch Prize’s unpublished flash fiction and short stories without violence to women, while the original book prize is on hold until 2022. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-11-01 12:22:21 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Under new leadership experienced in TV and film, Condé Nast’s entertainment arm is working more closely with its publications to develop articles and short stories into shows and movies. The post How Agnes Chu and Helen Estabrook are breaking Condé Nast Entertainment further into Hollywood... Continue reading at Digiday
[ Digiday | 2021-10-26 04:01:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
What are the best places to begin exploring the wonderful world of science fiction? Some of the classic novels of the genre, from Frank Herbert’s Dune to Asimov’s Foundation series (which eventually stretched to seven volumes), might appear daunting because of their sheer size and scope. Below,... Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2021-10-20 14:00:25 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Quercus imprint MacLehose Press has acquired My Pen is the Wing of a Bird: New Fiction by Afghan Women, an anthology of contemporary women's short stories with an introduction by BBC chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-10-19 02:58:08 UTC ]
More news stories like this
I think a lot of us believe in ghosts. In fact, many of us are likely haunted by them. I’m talking about emotional ghosts, of course. My debut short story collection, Those Fantastic Lives: And Other Strange Stories, has a particular fascination with ghosts. In my stories, there are certainly... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-10-14 11:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this