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Namwali Serpell biography

Author Biography  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

Namwali Serpell
Photo: © Peg Skorpinksi

Namwali Serpell

Namwali Serpell Biography

Namwali Serpell was born in Lusaka, Zambia, and lives in New York. She received a 2020 Windham-Campbell Literature Prize, the 2015 Caine Prize for African Writing, and a 2011 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award. Her debut novel, The Old Drift, won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award for science fiction, and the Los Angeles Times's Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction; it was named one of the 100 Notable Books of 2019 by the New York Times Book Review and one of Time magazine's 100 Must-Read Books of the Year. Her nonfiction book, Stranger Faces, was a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism. She is currently a professor of English at Harvard.

Namwali Serpell's website

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Books by this Author

Books by Namwali Serpell at BookBrowse
The Furrows jacket The Old Drift jacket
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Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Namwali Serpell but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

    Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

    Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was born in Nigeria in 1977. She is from Abba, in Anambra State, but grew up in the university town of Nsukka where she attended primary and secondary schools and briefly studied Medicine and ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    The Old Drift

    Try:
    The Thing Around Your Neck
    by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

  • David Brookshaw

    David Brookshaw

    Born in London, David Brookshaw is an emeritus professor at the School of Modern Languages at the University of Bristol. He specialises in comparative literature, translation, and postcolonial Portuguese literature. He has ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    The Old Drift

    Try:
    Woman of the Ashes
    by David Brookshaw

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