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 ]
Are these the end times? Who knows! Settle into this current quasi-dystopian reality with recent books by American writers of color. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2020-10-02 10:35:59 UTC ]
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Interviews Adib Khorram is an author, graphic designer, and tea enthusiast. Iranian American, he was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri. A theater kid in high school, he went on to study design and technical theater at Southern Illinois... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2020-09-25 11:55:24 UTC ]
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In order to fit more texts into my Asian American literature course, I sometimes assign the play adaptation of Jessica Hagedorn’s novel Dogeaters. The novel is canonized within Asian American literature and features an imagined version of the Philippines made from film and radio tropes, found... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2020-09-17 11:00:54 UTC ]
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From The New Yorker’s archive: short stories by Zadie Smith, Jennifer Egan, and Stephen King. Continue reading at New Yorker
[ New Yorker | 2020-08-30 10:00:00 UTC ]
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The Little Mermaid sacrifices her tail for a human soul. The Navajo Changing Woman grows old and is reborn with the seasons. The nymph Daphne becomes a tree to escape lovesick Apollo. Women transform because we are hungry. We transform because we’re restless, and because we’re dangerous. Women... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2020-08-28 11:00:00 UTC ]
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From The New Yorker’s archive: short stories by Zadie Smith, Jennifer Egan, and Stephen King. Continue reading at New Yorker
[ New Yorker | 2020-08-16 10:00:00 UTC ]
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The most iconic short stories in the English language, as determined by that “weird and wiggly” hive-mind, the American cultural consciousness. | Lit Hub Jill Filipovic on how Boomers—“the generation with the least stable marriages in American history”—changed family life forever. | Lit Hub... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-08-13 10:30:25 UTC ]
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Last year, I put together this list of the most iconic poems in the English language; it’s high time to do the same for short stories. But before we go any further, you may be asking: What does “iconic” mean in this context? Can a short story really be iconic in the way of a […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-08-13 08:50:36 UTC ]
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A Chicago brewery is partnering with Hat and Beard Press to cross-promote craft beer and a new collection of short stories by Sam Weller by brewing an Imperial stout with a label that replicates the cover of 'Dark Black.' Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-08-03 04:00:00 UTC ]
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At Lit Hub, David Karashima asked five Japanese writers, including Yoko Ogawa and Masatsugu Ono, to discuss their favorite short stories by Haruki Murakami. Mieko Kawakami, author of Breasts and Eggs, praises the story on loneliness and lost, “Tony Takitani.” “I think of Murakami as an athlete,”... Continue reading at The Millions
[ The Millions | 2020-07-22 20:30:36 UTC ]
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Bonnier Books UK is releasing 500 Words: Black Lives Matter, a book featuring short stories children have submitted to a Chris Evans-devised Virgin Radio competition this month. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-07-16 10:43:26 UTC ]
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Irving Howe wrote for the Book Review about American literature — “moving from visions to problems, from ecstasy to trouble, from self to society” — on July 4, 1976. “Land of the free? Yes, but also home of the exploited.” Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-07-02 21:18:57 UTC ]
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Interviews Veronica Esposito Photo by Camila Valdés Megan McDowell has translated many contemporary authors from Latin America and Spain, including Alejandro Zambra, Samanta Schweblin, and Lina Meruane. Shortlisted for the Man Booker... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2020-06-22 15:20:00 UTC ]
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Faber is to publish a collection of short stories by John Lanchester this autumn. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-06-18 08:59:04 UTC ]
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Short stories by contemporary Italian writers are hard to come across and almost none of them make it across the Atlantic. Booksellers and publishers seem to stay away from them because—what’s new?—they sell less, as they apparently lack “the immersive factor.” However, readers in the twentieth... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-06-16 08:48:49 UTC ]
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‘The Man of the Crowd’ is one of the shorter short stories written by Edgar Allan Poe (who pioneered the short story form when it was still an emerging force in nineteenth-century magazines and periodicals). Written in 1840, the story is deliciously enigmatic and, in some ways, prefigures later... Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2020-06-02 14:00:22 UTC ]
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First published in 1819, ‘Rip Van Winkle’ is one of the most famous pieces of writing by Washington Irving, whose contribution to American literature was considerable. ‘Rip Van Winkle’ has become a byword for the idea of falling asleep and waking up to find the familiar world around us has... Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2020-05-28 14:00:18 UTC ]
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It’s a long-standing joke in lockdown now – among those of us quarantined, self-isolating, or lucky enough to keep working from home – that we don’t know which day it is. Or even which week. And did I shower this morning, or was it yesterday? Our immediate surroundings have been so similar for... Continue reading at British Council global
[ British Council global | 2020-05-15 14:46:20 UTC ]
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Whether delving into chunky historical narratives or listening to short story podcasts, we’ve all been approaching reading differently during lockdown. Our reading habits can take us back in time, allow us to examine our present, or give us hope for the future. In time for the May bank holiday... Continue reading at British Council global
[ British Council global | 2020-05-07 13:58:54 UTC ]
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Cultural Cross Sections Alex Wade View inland from the top of Zennor Hill / Courtesy of the author Walking his dogs through the Zennor moors, a writer in Cornwall contemplates the area’s literary history and discovers the ever-growing distance between... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2020-05-07 13:18:25 UTC ]
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