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 ]
In the mood for bite-sized entertainment? Essays about nature and outstanding short stories make for deep but quick listening this month. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2020-11-24 20:14:50 UTC ]
More news stories like this
In the mood for bite-sized entertainment? Essays about nature and outstanding short stories make for deep but quick listening this month. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2020-11-24 20:14:50 UTC ]
More news stories like this
In the mood for bite-sized entertainment? Essays about nature and outstanding short stories make for deep but quick listening this month. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2020-11-24 20:14:50 UTC ]
More news stories like this
“The Office of Historical Corrections,” an extraordinary new collection of fiction, examines alienation and the phantasmagoria of racial performance. Continue reading at New Yorker
[ New Yorker | 2020-11-21 16:01:38 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Short stories are a complex form, one that author and professor Danielle Evans continues to show herself adept in. The ever-shifting opportunities of short fiction are evident in Evans’s work, from her debut collection Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self to her latest, The Office of... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2020-11-20 12:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
This morning, Publishers Marketplace reported that two-time Booker Prize winner and historical fiction supremo Hilary Mantel has a new short story collection on the horizon. Learning to Talk, which will be released by Holt at some point next year, is billed as “a collection of loosely... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-11-18 18:07:12 UTC ]
More news stories like this
In a ceremony streamed live on Facebook, Souvankham Thammavongsa was awarded the 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize for her collection of short stories 'How to Pronounce Knife.' It comes with a C$100,000 prize. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-11-10 05:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Intern’s Picks Andrzej Sapkowski The Last Wish Trans. Danusia Stok Sword of Destiny Trans. David French Orbit “And our destiny. It isn’t a fairy story, it’s real life. Lousy, evil, onerous . . . not sparing anyone, neither witchers, nor queens” (Sword... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2020-11-04 14:28:19 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Cultural Cross Sections From the town of Kaikoura on the South Island / Photo by the author New Zealand may be best known to many as Middle Earth (and that’s not a bad rep to have), but the country has much more than just the snowcapped Pass of... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2020-11-03 17:25:10 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Since its publication in 1990, Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, a linked collection of semi-autobiographical short stories about the Vietnam War, has become a modern classic—in fact, its title story is the most frequently anthologized piece of short fiction in the last three decades, and... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-11-03 15:27:57 UTC ]
More news stories like this
We asked for your favorite short stories and got a long list! Here are 53 of the most outstanding short stories our readers have read. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2020-11-02 11:31:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Welcome to the virtual book launch of Tiny Nightmares: Very Short Tales of Horror, brought to you by The Antibody Reading Series in collaboration with WORD Bookstore (buy from the bookstore here). Tonight’s guests include editors Lincoln Michel and Nadxieli Nieto, along with contributors Meg... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-10-29 23:30:17 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Speak to us, oh lovers of short fiction: what are the most outstanding short stories you've read? Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2020-10-27 10:31:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
These short stories by Black authors include some of the best Black short stories published, for middle graders, YA readers, and adults. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2020-10-16 10:37:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Joni Eareckson Tada brings a children’s book about heaven to the Good Book Company, an introduction to African American literature lands at IVP, and more. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-10-14 04:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
The longing for connection, for belonging, is woven throughout a dozen short stories in Caroline Kim’s superlative debut collection. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2020-10-13 22:35:50 UTC ]
More news stories like this
The longing for connection, for belonging, is woven throughout a dozen short stories in Caroline Kim’s superlative debut collection. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2020-10-13 22:35:50 UTC ]
More news stories like this
The longing for connection, for belonging, is woven throughout a dozen short stories in Caroline Kim’s superlative debut collection. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2020-10-13 22:35:50 UTC ]
More news stories like this
“You think you’ve known someone for a long time,” a character in one of Jenny Bhatt’s short stories says of her Indian colleague shortly after he’s shot dead by a white man in a bar. “Maybe he never really took to us. Never really became one of us.” Turn by turn, each of his white […] The post... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2020-10-13 11:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
What lengths will we go to in order to belong? To be part of something exclusive? To be part of a sisterhood or brotherhood? That’s the searing question that authors Benjamin Nugent and Genevieve Sly Crane try to answer in their books about college Greek life. Nugent’s Fraternity, a collection... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2020-10-02 11:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this