The author of a debut novel about diversity in the workplace on how black people act around white people, embracing her hair, and what’s changed a year after George Floyd’s murderZakiya Dalila Harris was born and raised in Connecticut and is currently based in Brooklyn. Now a full-time writer, she previously worked in book publishing, an experience she draws on in her highly anticipated debut novel, The Other Black Girl, which combines thriller with social satire to tell the story of Nella, the only black employee at a fictional publishing house, until Hazel joins the company. The book charts how the two become frenemies, explores the challenges of surviving in a systemically racist workplace, and was the subject of a 15-way auction prior to publication in the US.What were your own experiences in publishing and how have they played into the book?I worked in publishing for two and a half years. I was an editorial assistant then promoted to assistant editor. I felt fortunate, as a part of me enjoyed editing and I felt I was good at it, but it’s also an exhausting job for an entry-level person in terms of the pay. I was also one of the very few black people in the company – it wasn’t as bad as Nella in the book, but I was the only black woman in editorial in a full-time position for a while. I thought: why does it feel like we’re living in 1955 still, in terms of what we value? Publishing is such a rich, easily spoofable world.Code-switching is the act of switching up how... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2021-06-05 17:00:15 UTC ]
Picador has landed a story collection and debut novel from Niamh Mulvey, writer of publishing newsletter “In the Read” and a former Quercus commissioning editor. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-03-04 22:15:18 UTC ]
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The debut novel of Vintage editor Lily Lindon has gone to Head of Zeus in a four-way auction, as part of a two-book deal. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-03-04 09:59:43 UTC ]
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Megan Nolan's "Acts of Desperation," about a woman in thrall to an older man, stands out from similar tales with an uncannily self-aware narrator. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2021-03-03 15:00:19 UTC ]
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Alexandra Andrews’s debut novel follows a Machiavellian aspiring writer who becomes entangled in her work for a best-selling fiction writer. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-03-03 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Perhaps it’s not surprising that even the prose in illustrator Forsyth Harmon’s debut novel Justine is deeply imagistic. Reading this short, powerful story feels like wandering through a museum exhibit about teenage girlhood on Long Island in the summer of 1999. Narrator Ali and her friends feed... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-03-02 12:00:00 UTC ]
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When we started sheltering in place at the beginning of the pandemic, in a burst of energy and optimism I haven’t experienced since, I started a social distance book club. I selected Lara Williams’s debut novel Supper Club, which I’d recently read, because I thought a book that centered on women... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-03-02 12:00:00 UTC ]
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“Burnt Sugar,” a debut novel by Avni Doshi, depicts a particularly intense mother-daughter relationship — from the tormented daughter’s point of view. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-03-02 10:00:08 UTC ]
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Hodder Studios has pre-empted two books from Sarah Bonner, including her debut novel Her Perfect Twin, described as an "original, compelling and propulsive" thriller. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-03-01 10:16:58 UTC ]
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Virago has acquired the debut novel by Sharma Taylor, What a Mother’s Love Don’t Teach You, at auction as part of a two-book deal. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-03-01 03:02:12 UTC ]
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Sceptre has landed a "stunning" short story collection and debut novel by Serpent's Tail assistant editor Leon Craig. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-02-28 15:58:25 UTC ]
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Lauren Oyler’s debut novel brings the reader down a rabbit hole of endless, mindless scrolling, online identities, and conspiracy theories. Fake Accounts follows the journey of a young woman after she discovers that her boyfriend is running an Instagram account spouting dangerous conspiracies... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-02-26 12:00:00 UTC ]
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In “The Committed,” a follow-up to “The Sympathizer,” Viet Thanh Nguyen’s nameless spy navigates a Paris underworld rife with drug deals, violence and colonialism’s ghosts. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-02-26 10:00:03 UTC ]
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In Daniel Loedel’s haunting debut novel Hades, Argentina, Tomás Orilla returns to Buenos Aires—“a city made for forgetting as much for nostalgia”—ten years after fleeing the military dictatorship whose regime disappeared upwards of 30,000 thousand political opponents, including Isabel Aroztegui,... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-02-25 12:00:00 UTC ]
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The movie adaptation of Nico Walker’s Cherry—the best-selling debut novel about an Iraq veteran turned heroin addict turned bank robber—will be released in theaters in two days, directed by the Russo Brothers (who you might know from Avengers) and starring Tom Holland (who you might know from... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-02-24 18:21:44 UTC ]
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Nancy Johnson’s debut novel “The Kindest Lie” is a well-crafted exploration of class, race, and culture; of motherhood; and of family ties. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2021-02-17 13:46:20 UTC ]
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Nancy Johnson’s debut novel “The Kindest Lie” is a well-crafted exploration of class, race, and culture; of motherhood; and of family ties. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2021-02-17 13:46:20 UTC ]
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Picador has netted New Animal, a “sharp and witty” debut novel by poet and sculptor Ella Baxter. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-02-14 20:43:00 UTC ]
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Wildfire has pre-empted former Home Secretary and memoirist Alan Johnson’s debut novel, The Late Train to Gipsy Hill. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-02-10 23:51:47 UTC ]
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DURING ONE KEY MOMENT, E. Lily Yu’s disquieting debut novel On Fragile Waves offers a kind of authorial self-critique regarding the representation of diasporic migrants. A character Yu calls “the writer” has traveled to Australia to interview asylum seekers in the Afghan migrant community there... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2021-02-06 16:00:46 UTC ]
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Today, as we have done in years past, LARB honors Black History Month by highlighting a series of reviews, essays, interviews, and exchanges of letters we published in January. Below you will find a poignant essay on the Compton Christmas Parade; a penetrating interview with Kiley Reid, author... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2021-02-01 13:30:13 UTC ]
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