We’ve changed our weekly literary news roundup just a bit for the new year. From now on, you’ll find tips on #ReadingAfrica all year round, great titles to check out from our backlist, and of course, other bookish news from across the internet. Think of this as a mini newsletter (for the regular-sized serving of our newsletter, subscribe here). Happy reading!
Public libraries are doing great, but literary magazines–not so much. Apple Books launched its new book club, and We Need Diverse Books started a grant for educators teaching diverse stories. The Rathbones Folio Prize and the Waterstone Children’s Book Prize announced their shortlists, and the National Book Foundation announced its inaugural titles for its new Science and Literature program. Ashley Bryan, beloved author of children’s books on Black lives including Beautiful Blackbird, died at age 98.
#ReadingAfrica roundup
In this new section, we’ll be sharing publishing news, book recs, and more all focused on African and African diaspora authors. Don’t forget to mark your calendars for our sixth annual #ReadingAfrica week, this year Dec 4-10!
African Languages Week just wrapped up, during which the winners of the Mabati Cornell Kiswahili Prize for African Literature were announced. (Did you know that prize was co-founded by Lizzy Attree of Short Story Day Africa, the creative team behind Disruption: New Short Fiction from Africa, for which we are very honored to be the North American publisher?) Also this week, United Nations Women launched a multilingual book to promote intra-African trade for African women.
And happy Black History Month! To celebrate, here are 40 influential Black screenwriters, poets, authors, and songwriters who have changed the world, 23 highly anticipated new books by Black authors, 6 Black author recommendations from Colombia professors, and a few lesser known Harlem Renaissance writers you should read. Akwaeke Emezi gives some book recs, and literary leaders pick their dream movie adaptations from books by Black authors.
Procrastination Station
For your reading pleasure, here’s Emily Wehniainen on Wuthering Heights’ “horny wind”, the book that predicted the future, novels about all-women households and communities, some bookish ASMR to fall asleep to, and finally, it’s Oscars season again, so here’s your literary guide to all of this year’s nominations–because every Oscars party needs that guest who won’t shut up about how much better the book is.
From the Backlist
Already devoured Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu’s The History of Man and looking for your next great African lit-fic read? Check out Yewande Omotoso’s debut novel, Bom Boy, which Foreword Reviews calls an “intricately structured literary novel that powerfully evokes family as a source of loss and struggle, but also of hope.”
More praise for Bom Boy:
“How did Yewande Omotoso pack so much in such a slender book? Bom Boy is a remarkable exploration of history and identity, love and loss. Omotoso’s writing is honest, passionate and compelling.” —Chika Ungiwe, author On Black Sisters Street and The Black Messiah
“Through three decades, two countries and multiple points of view, a complete picture of Leke’s life in the present slowly surfaces in Yewande Omotoso’s debut novel. […] Despite his quirks, Leke’s plight is curiously engaging as it speaks to the universal yearning to belong somewhere with someone.” —Shelf Awareness
“Omotoso’s concise prose captures the racial complexities of the book’s backdrop while enabling her protagonist to find his own way with her evocative plotting.” —World Literature Today
Check out a Q&A with Yewande here, and read her essay in Sunday Times about living wide awake in a pandemic era.
