Book Digest

Book Digest: Nnedi Okorafor, Afabwaje Kurian, A. K. Herman, Enajite Efemuaye

Our regular Book Digest segment spotlights new books from Nnedi Okorafor, Afabwaje Kurian, A. K. Herman, and Enajite Efemuaye.

Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor

Publisher: William Morrow
Date:
January 14, 2025
Genre:
Fiction
Language:
English, Speculative Fiction
Where to find it:
Harper Collins, Nnedi Okorafor

Nnedi Okorafor

Nnedi Okorafor
Nnedi Okorafor

Nnedi Okorafor is the author of multiple award-winning and New York Times bestsellers, including Death of the Author, the Binti trilogy, Who Fears Death, and Lagoon, currently in development at Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment. She has won every major prize in speculative fiction, including the World Fantasy, Nebula, and Eisner Awards; multiple Hugo Awards; and the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa. Born in Cincinnati to Igbo Nigerian immigrant parents, she now resides in Phoenix, Arizona, with her daughter, Anyaugo.

Death of the Author

Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor
Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor

The future of storytelling is here.

Disabled, disinclined to marry, and more interested in writing than a lucrative career in medicine or law, Zelu has always felt like the outcast of her large Nigerian family. Then her life is upended when, in the middle of her sister’s lavish Caribbean wedding, she’s unceremoniously fired from her university job and, to add insult to injury, her novel is rejected by yet another publisher. With her career and dreams crushed in one fell swoop, she decides to write something just for herself. What comes out is nothing like the quiet, literary novels that have so far peppered her unremarkable career. It’s a far-future epic where androids and AI wage war in the grown-over ruins of human civilization. She calls it Rusted Robots.

When Zelu finds the courage to share her strange novel, she does not realize she is about to embark on a life-altering journey—one that will catapult her into literary stardom, but also perhaps obliterate everything her book was meant to be. From Chicago to Lagos to the far reaches of space, Zelu’s novel will change the future not only for humanity, but for the robots who come next.

A book-within-a-book that blends the line between writing and being written, Death of the Author is a masterpiece of metafiction that manages to combine the razor-sharp commentary of Yellowface with the heartfelt humanity of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. Surprisingly funny, deeply poignant, and endlessly discussable, this is at once the tale of a woman on the margins risking everything to be heard and a testament to the power of storytelling to shape the world as we know it.

The Believers by A. K. Herman

Publisher: A. R. Phillips Press
Date:
November 12, 2024
Genre:
Fiction, Short Stories
Language:
English
Where to find it:
A. R. Phillips Press, A. K. Herman

A. K. Herman

A. K. Herman
A. K. Herman

A. K. Herman is a poet and fiction writer, born in Scarborough, Tobago. She was shortlisted for the 2009 Commonwealth Short Story Prize and placed 2nd in the 2011 Small Axe Journal Literary Contest. ​ Growing up, A. K. heard fantastical stories about Tobago, its people, beliefs, and practices. Childhood tales and her time living in Brooklyn’s Little Caribbean- a vibrant neighborhood of immigrants and visitors from the Caribbean and Latin America– inspires her writing, which also serves as historical documents that capture culture, belief and practices that have faded or are fading. A. K.’s writing has appeared in various online and print literary journals, including Doek! Literary Journal, Lolwe, The Waterstone Review, Shenandoah and others. A. K. lives in New York.

The Believers

The Believers by A. K. Herman
The Believers by A. K. Herman

A. K. Herman’s wondrous debut story collection imbues people on the periphery with power hardly visible to outsiders — where no one conforms to type. In these stories, we encounter predatory churches, doomed lovers, babies born in secret and boys with wings. “The Believers” is an unforgettable collection that lingers.

In the title story, to leave a seemingly friendly and supportive church, a family must risk everything. In “The Iridescent Blue-Black Boy with Wings (After Márquez),” children find a winged boy in a seaside village in Tobago. In “Ready for the Revolution?” uncertain lovers play rough with identity politics, and are set on an unexpected path. In “Drink the Dew,” love and wrath become one, while the young woman in “Inside,” navigates a complicated business arrangement with her lover. In “Love,” a scandalous affair produces a love child, born with a dark omen, while in “Exile,” a pregnant teen from a staunchly religious family, is exiled to have her baby in secret. A gardener in “Love Story No. 8,” falls for a rich man’s daughter to disastrous ends. The Believers is at once poignant, subversive and utterly haunting.
Before the Mango Ripens by Afabwaje Kurian

Publisher: Dzanc Books
Date:
September 24, 2024
Genre:
Fiction
Language:
English
Where to find it:
Dzanc Books, Afabwaje Kurian

Afabwaje Kurian
Afabwaje Kurian

Afabwaje Kurian received her MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her short fiction has appeared in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Callaloo, Crazyhorse, The Bare Life Review, and Joyland Magazine. She has taught creative writing at the University of Iowa, for the International Writing Program, and for The Writer’s Center. Born in Jos, Nigeria, and raised in Prince George’s County, Maryland, and in Ohio, Afabwaje now divides her time between Washington, DC, and the Midwest.

Before the Mango Ripens

Before the Mango Ripens by Afabwaje Kurian
Before the Mango Ripens by Afabwaje Kurian

Set against the backdrop of 1970s Nigeria teetering between post-colonial dependency and self-rule, Before the Mango Ripens examines the enduring themes of faith, disillusionment, and the search for belonging. Both epic and intimate, Afabwaje Kurian’s debut announces a brilliant new talent for readers of Imbolo Mbue and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. In Rabata, everyone has secrets—especially since the arrival of the white American missionaries. Twenty-year-old Jummai is a beautiful and unassuming house girl whose dreams of escaping her home life are disrupted when an unexpected pregnancy forces her to hide her lover’s identity. Tebeya, an ambitious Dublin-educated doctor, has left prestigious opportunities abroad to return to the small town of her birth, and discovers a painful betrayal when she strives to take control of the mission clinic. Zanya is a young translator, enticed by promises of progress, who comes to Rabata to escape a bitter past and finds himself embroiled in a fight against the American reverend for the heart of the church and town. United by their yearning for change, all three must make difficult decisions that threaten the fragile relationships of the Rabata they know. As tensions mount and hypocrisies are unveiled, the people of Rabata are faced with a question that will transform their town forever: Let the Americans stay, or make them go?

When Home Calls by Enajite Efemuaye

Publisher: Independent
Date:
January 6, 2025
Genre:
Fiction
Language:
English
Where to find it:
Selar, Amazon

Enajite Efemuaye

Enajite Efemuaye
Enajite Efemuaye

Enajite Efemuaye is an editor, sometimes writer, and retired graphic artist, with a chemical engineering degree which she has never used. She is the co-founder of Society for Book and Magazine Editors of Nigeria.

When Home Calls

When Home Calls by Enajite Efemuaye
When Home Calls by Enajite Efemuaye

Returning to the village for her family’s yearly Christmas celebration, Avwerosuo is still coming to terms with the discovery that kept her away for three years—her dad isn’t her biological father. Romance is the last thing on her mind. That changes when she meets the captivating Mitaire Adjarho. He stirs her deepest desires and makes her feel truly at home. But as their connection deepens, an old feud between their families resurfaces, threatening to shatter their new bond. In the face of generational wounds and family grudges, Avwerosuo and Mitaire must decide if what they share is strong enough to withstand the weight of the past.

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