Africa39 (54 page)

‘The Banana Eater’ by Monica Arac de Nyeko was first published in AGNI online, 2010 (https://www.bu.edu/agni/fiction/africa/arac-de-nyeko.html).

Extract from
All Our Names
by Dinaw Mengestu. Copyright © 2014 Dinaw Mengestu, reproduced by permission of Hodder and Stoughton Ltd.

Extract from
The Wayfarer’s Daughter
by Chibundu Onuzo (forthcoming Faber and Faber Ltd, 2016), Copyright © Chibundu Onuzo, 2014, used by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd.

Penguin, London, for Taiye Selasi, from
Ghana Must Go
(Viking, 2013). Copyright © Taiye Selasi, 2013, for World (exc. Canada and the USA); from
Ghana Must Go
by Taiye Selasi, copyright © 2013 by Taiye Selasi. Used by permission of The Penguin Press, a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC; Andrew Wylie Agency, for Taiye Selasi
Ghana Must Go
(Hamish Hamilton, 2013) © 2013, Taiye Selasi, for Canada. All rights reserved.

Notes on the Authors

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
 was born and raised in Nigeria. Her work has been translated into thirty languages and has appeared in various publications including the
 Financial Times
,
Granta, 
the 
New Yorker 
and 
Zoetrope
. She is the author of the novels 
Purple Hibiscus
, which won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize; 
Half of a Yellow Sun
, which won the Orange Prize, was a National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist and a 
New York Times
 Notable Book; and the story collection 
The Thing Around Your Neck
. Her latest novel,
Americanah
, was published in 2013 and has received awards including the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and the 
Chicago Tribune
 Heartland Prize for Fiction and was named one of the 
New York Times
 Ten Best Books of the Year. A recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, she divides her time between the United States and Nigeria.

Monica Arac de Nyeko
is from Uganda. She won the Caine Prize for African writing in 2007 for ‘Jambula Tree’. She is working on a novel.

Rotimi Babatunde
’s fiction and poetry has been published internationally. He is a winner of the Meridian Tragic Love Story Competition organised by the BBC World Service and was awarded the Cyprian Ekwensi Prize for Short Stories by the Abuja Writers’ Forum. His story ‘Bombay’s Republic’ was awarded the 2012 Caine Prize for African Writing. His plays have been broadcast on the BBC World Service and produced by theatres including the Young Vic in London, the Halcyon Theatre in Chicago and Sweden’s Riksteatern, among others. He lives in Ibadan, Nigeria.

Eileen Almeida Barbosa
was born in Senegal to a Cape Verdean mother and a father from Guinea Bissau. She was raised and now lives in Cape Verde. In 2005 she won the inaugural National Pantera Revelation Prize for Short Stories and the Pantera Revelation Prize for Poetry. Her story collection,
Eileenístico,
was published in 2007. A translator and communications specialist, Barbosa blogs at soncent.blogspot.com. She works as an advisor to the Prime Minister and is currently writing her second collection of short stories.

A. Igoni Barrett
was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. His first story collection,
From Caves of Rotten Teeth
, was published in Nigeria in 2005. His second collection,
Love is Power, or Something Like That
, was picked by NPR as a best book of 2013. He is the winner of the 2005 BBC World Service short story competition, the recipient of a Chinua Achebe Center fellowship, a Norman Mailer Center fellowship, and a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Residency. His short fiction has been published in journals including
AGNI
,
Guernica
and
Kwani?
. He lives in Lagos.

Jackee Budesta Batanda
was born in Uganda. She is a short story writer and independent journalist. The Africa regional winner of the 2003 Commonwealth Short Story Competition, her stories have been performed on the BBC World Service, BBC3 and radio stations throughout the Commonwealth as well as appearing in various international anthologies. She has written for publications including the
New York Times
, the
Boston Globe
and the
Mail & Guardian
. She was the recipient of a 2010 Uganda Young Achievers Award and named by
The Times
(London) in 2012 as one of twenty women shaping the future of Africa. She is currently at work on a novel.

Recaredo Silebo Boturu
is a poet, playwright, storyteller and the co-founder and director of Companía Teatral Bocamandja. Born in Bareso, on the island of Bioko in Equatorial Guinea, his writings explore themes of social change and seek to re-establish oral traditions. He is among the most important advocates of theatre in his country and his works are performed in every region of the country, and have earned him considerable recognition. He is the author of two books
Luz en la noche
,
Poesía y Teatro
(
Light in the Darkness: poems and plays
) (2010) and
Crónicas de memorias anuladas, poesía y teatro
(
Chronicles of obliterated memories: poems and plays
) (2014) published by Editorial Verbum. His writings have been published in a number of anthologies and magazines, including
Caminos y veredas: narrativas de Guinea ecuatorial (UNAM)
,
La Palabra y la Memoria: Guinea
25
anos después and the Afro-Hispanic Review
. Translations of his work in English have appeared in
Bengal Lights
,
Molossus
, and
World Literature Today
. He has participated in conferences and spoken at universities in Spain, Columbia and the USA.

Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond
is a Ghanaian-American writer living in New York. Her fiction, poetry and essays have appeared in publications including
African Writing
,
Ebony
magazine, the
Village Voice
, NBC’s The Grio and in the anthology
Women’s Work
.
Publishers Weekly
 hailed her novel 
Powder Necklace
, published in 2010, as ‘a winning debut’. Most recently, she founded the blog People Who Write.

Shadreck Chikoti
 is a Malawian writer, public speaker and social activist. His awards include the 2013 Peer Gynt Literary Award for his forthcoming futuristic novel, 
Azotus, the Kingdom
. His short story ‘Child of the Hyena’ was published in 
To See the Mountain
, the 2011 Caine Prize Anthology. He is vice president of the Malawi Writers Union and Director of Pan African Publishers Ltd and recently founded the Story Club Malawi, a social gathering for artists.

Edwige-Renée Dro
worked as a marketing assistant and community journalist in the UK before moving back to Cote d’Ivoire, where she was born. Her stories have been published in
Prima
magazine and africanwriter.com. She is currently completing work on her first novel and is the founder of Abidjan Lit, an African fiction book group.

Tope Folarin
was born in the United States to Nigerian parents. He made his fiction debut in 
Transition
 with ‘Miracle’ in 2012, for which he was awarded the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2013. His work has also appeared in
Africa Report
and the
Virginia Quarterly Review.
He is a graduate of Morehouse College and Oxford University, where he earned two Master’s degrees as a Rhodes Scholar. He is a recipient of fellowships from the Institute for Policy Studies and
Callaloo
and serves on the board of the Hurston/Wright Foundation. He lives in Washington DC and is currently at work on his first novel.

Clifton Gachagua
is a Kenyan writer. He is the recipient of the 2013 inaugural Sillerman Prize for African Poetry for his debut collection
The Madman at Kilifi
,
which was subsequently published in 2014 by the University of Nebraska Press. In 2013 he was longlisted for the
Kwani?
 Manuscript Project for his novel
Zephyrion.
His work has appeared in publications including
Saraba
,
Storymoja
and
Kwani?
and the science fiction anthology
AfroSF.
He is currently an editor at Kawani Trust and Jalada and television scriptwriter and blogs at thedrumsofshostakovich.com.

Stanley Gazemba
is a Kenyan journalist and the author of three novels:
The Stone Hills of Maragoli
,
Khama
and
Callused Hands
, and eight children’s books. A recipient of the Jomo Kenyatta Prize, his articles and stories have appeared in publications including
‘A’ is for Ancestors
, the Caine Prize Anthology, the
East African
and the
New York Times
. In 2013 his novel
Ghettoboy
was shortlisted for the
Kwani?
Manuscript Project and his new book,
Callused Hands
, has been published by Nsemia Publishers. He works as the East Africa Editor for Music in Africa.

Mehul Gohil
 is a writer born and living in Nairobi, Kenya. He was the winner of the 2010
Kwani? 
‘The Kenya I Live In’ short story prize. His fiction has been published in 
Kwani? 
and on several online platforms including Short Story Day Africa. His journalism has appeared in publications including the Sahan Journal and chessbase.com. He is a founding member of the literary collective Jalada. 

Hawa Jande Golakai
was born in Germany to Liberian parents. She was raised in Liberia until the start of civil war in 1990, and has since lived in several other African countries including Ghana, Togo and Zimbabwe. Her debut novel,
The Lazarus Effect
, was shortlisted for the 2011
Sunday Times
Fiction Prize, the University of Johannesburg Debut Prize and longlisted for the Wole Soyinka Prize. She  currently lives and works in Monrovia, Liberia, as a medical immunologist and is completing her second novel, a sequel.

Shafinaaz Hassim
is a South African writer and sociologist. She is the author of several books including
Daughters are Diamonds: Honour, Shame & Seclusion – A South African Perspective
and
Memoirs for Kimya
and the novel,
SoPhia
.
SoPhia
has been converted into performance theatre and staged at the State Theatre during August 2014 prior to its national tour. She is the editor of the Belly of Fire anthologies for social change. Her new anthology,
Soul Seeds for Shade & Solitude
has just been launched. A social commentator and contributor to the
Mail & Guardian
, her work has been shortlisted for the K. Sello Duiker Award and the University of Johannesburg Debut Prize for Creative Writing.

Abubakar Adam Ibrahim
was born in Jos, Nigeria. His debut short story collection 
The Whispering Trees
 was published in Nigeria in 2012 and was longlisted in 2014 for the inaugural Etisalat Prize for Literature; the title story was shortlisted for the 2013 Caine Prize for African Writing. In 2007 he was the winner of the BBC African Performance Prize and was named the 2013 Gabriel García Márquez Fellow. He lives in Abuja, Nigeria where he works as an arts editor for a national newspaper.

Stanley Onjezani Kenani
was born in Malawi and currently lives in Switzerland. He has twice been shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing, in 2008 and 2012. He is the author of the story collection
For Honour and Other Stories
and is currently working on his first novel.

Ndinda Kioko
 is a Kenyan writer and filmmaker whose short fiction has appeared in several literary magazines and anthologies. Her story
Death at the End of the Bougainvillea
is published by Jalada Africa. Other works appear in publications including
Fresh Paint
–
Literary Vignettes by Kenyan Women
. She is currently working on her debut novel and producing a fifty-two episode television series for M-Net.