Taiye Selasi

Last updated

Taiye Selasi
TaiyeSelasi P1030135.JPG
Selasi at the Erlanger Poetenfest, 2013
BornTaiye Tuakli
(1979-11-02) 2 November 1979 (age 44)
London, United Kingdom
OccupationNovelist
Education Yale University (BA)
Nuffield College, Oxford (MPhil)
Period2005–present
Literary movement Realism, Drama
Notable works Ghana Must Go (2013)
Website
Taiye Selasi on Twitter

Taiye Selasi (born 2 November 1979 in London, England) is an American writer and photographer. [1] [2] Of Nigerian and Ghanaian origin, she describes herself as a "local" of Accra, Berlin, New York and Rome. In 2005, Selasi published "Bye-Bye, Babar (Or: What is an Afropolitan?)", her seminal text on Afropolitans. Her novel, Ghana Must Go , was published by Penguin in 2013.

Contents

Early life and education

Taiye Selasi was born in London, England, and raised in Brookline, Massachusetts, the elder of twin daughters of Dr. Lade Wosornu, of Ghanaian descent, a surgeon in Saudi Arabia [3] and author of numerous volumes of poetry, [4] [5] and Dr. Juliette Tuakli, of Nigerian heritage, a paediatrician in Ghana [6] [7] known for her advocacy of children's rights, including sitting on the board of United Way. Selasi's parents separated when she was an infant. She met her biological father at the age of 12. [8]

Selasi graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a BA degree in American studies from Yale, [9] and earned her MPhil in international relations from Nuffield College, Oxford. [10]

Career

In 2005 The LIP Magazine published "Bye-Bye, Babar (Or: What is an Afropolitan?)", [11] Selasi's seminal text on Afropolitans. In "Bye Bye Babar", Selasi describes a new African diaspora: "Perhaps what most typifies the Afropolitan consciousness is the refusal to oversimplify; the effort to understand what is ailing in Africa alongside the desire to honor what is wonderful, unique." [11] Selasi does not seek recognition as the originator of Afropolitanism, "She makes a point not to claim to have coined it, and she downplays her own role in the whole phenomenon that followed from it." [12] Selasi is the first writer ever to publish on the subject of Afropolitan identity. The conversation of Afropolitanism increased following the essay, and this paved the way for scholars such as Simon Gikandi and Achille Mbembe to "further develop" [13] the term, Afropolitan, into a widely known and used ideology. The same year she wrote the essay, she penned a play that was produced at a small theatre by Avery Willis, Toni Morrison's niece. [14]

In 2006, Morrison gave Selasi a one-year deadline; she wrote "The Sex Lives of African Girls" to meet it. The story, published by UK literary magazine Granta in 2011, appears in Best American Short Stories 2012. [15]

Selasi's novel, Ghana Must Go , was published by Penguin in 2013. It was acclaimed by Diana Evans in The Guardian, [16] Margaret Busby in The Independent, [17] by The Economist , [18] and by The Wall Street Journal . [19] Selected as one of the 10 Best Books of 2013 by The Wall Street Journal and The Economist, the novel had been sold in 22 countries as of 2014. [20] [21] [22]

Selasi collaborates frequently with fellow artists. In 2012, she partnered with architect David Adjaye to create the Gwangju River Reading Room, an open-air library erected in 2013 as part of the Gwangju Biennale's Folly II. [23] With director Teddy Goitom, founder of Stocktown, Selasi is Executive Producer of Afripedia, a documentary series about urban African creatives. With producers Fernando Meirelles and Hank Levine, Selasi is developing Exodus, a feature documentary about global migration.[ citation needed ]

In 2013, Selasi was a juror in the Italian reality TV show Masterpiece on Rai 3 with Andrea De Carlo. [24]

Selasi has been outspoken on publishers' tendency to pigeonhole African writers, making them bear the burden of representing their continent. [25] [26] She chooses to identify herself with localities, rather than with countries, having lived in New York City, Berlin, Rome, and Lisbon, as well as regularly visiting Accra. [27] [28]

She is a contributor to the anthology New Daughters of Africa (edited by Margaret Busby, 2019). [29]

In a 2020 interview published in Brittle Paper , Selasi's response to a challenge by Bhakti Shringarpure to "Define or Defy(ne) 'African' Literature" was: "Any human literature informed, to some meaningful extent, by one (or more) of an infinity of time-space realities described, by the author of said literature, as African (winks)." [30]

Selasi is the author of the children's book Anansi and the Golden Pot, published in 2022. [31]

Personal life

Her given name means first twin in her mother's native Yoruba.

Her twin sister, Yetsa Kehinde Tuakli, is a physiatrist in the US. The first African member of the International Paralympic Committee, she competes in the long jump for Ghana's national team. [32] She married Dutch cinematographer David Claessen in 2013.

Works

Novels

Children's books

Short stories

Essays

Awards

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Buchi Emecheta</span> Nigerian writer (1944–2017)

Florence Onyebuchi "Buchi" Emecheta was a Nigerian-born novelist, based in the UK from 1962, who also wrote plays and an autobiography, as well as works for children. She was the author of more than 20 books, including Second Class Citizen (1974), The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977) and The Joys of Motherhood (1979). Most of her early novels were published by Allison and Busby, where her editor was Margaret Busby.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ama Ata Aidoo</span> Ghanaian writer, politician, and academic (1942–2023)

Ama Ata Aidoo was a Ghanaian author, poet, playwright, politician, and academic. She was Secretary for Education in Ghana from 1982 to 1983 under Jerry Rawlings's PNDC administration. Her first play, The Dilemma of a Ghost, was published in 1965, making Aidoo the first published female African dramatist. As a novelist, she won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize in 1992 with the novel Changes. In 2000, she established the Mbaasem Foundation in Accra to promote and support the work of African women writers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nuruddin Farah</span> Somali novelist (born 1945)

Nuruddin Farah is a Somali novelist. His first novel, From a Crooked Rib, was published in 1970 and has been described as "one of the cornerstones of modern East African literature today". He has also written plays both for stage and radio, as well as short stories and essays. Since leaving Somalia in the 1970s he has lived and taught in numerous countries, including the United States, Britain, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Sudan, India, Uganda, Nigeria and South Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Binyavanga Wainaina</span> Kenyan writer and editor (1971–2019)

Kenneth Binyavanga Wainaina was a Kenyan author, journalist and 2002 winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing. In 2003, he was the founding editor of Kwani? literary magazine. In April 2014, Time magazine included Wainaina in its annual Time 100 as one of the "Most Influential People in the World".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nii Parkes</span> British performance poet, writer, publisher and broadcaster (born 1974)

Nii Ayikwei Parkes, born in the United Kingdom to parents from Ghana, where he was raised, is a performance poet, writer, publisher and sociocultural commentator. He is one of 39 writers aged under 40 from sub-Saharan Africa who in April 2014 were named as part of the Hay Festival's prestigious Africa39 project. He writes for children under the name K.P. Kojo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chika Unigwe</span> Nigerian-born Igbo author (born 1974)

Chika Nina Unigwe is a Nigerian-born Igbo author who writes in English and Dutch. In April 2014, she was selected for the Hay Festival's Africa39 list of 39 Sub-Saharan African writers aged under 40 with potential and talent to define future trends in African literature. Previously based in Belgium, she now lives in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">A. Igoni Barrett</span> Nigerian writer (born 1979)

Adrian Igonibo Barrett is a Nigerian writer of short stories and novels. In 2014, he was named on the Africa39 list of writers aged under 40 with potential and talent to define future trends in African literature. Following his two collections of short stories – From Caves of Rotten Teeth (2005) and Love Is Power, or Something Like That (2013) – his first novel, Blackass, was published in 2015, described by the Chicago Review of Books as "Kafka with a wink".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor</span> Kenyan writer (born 1968)

Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor is a Kenyan writer who is the author of novels, short stories and essays. She won the 2003 Caine Prize for African Writing for her story "Weight of Whispers".

Sarah Ladipo Manyika FRSL is a British-Nigerian writer of novels, short stories and essays and an active member of the literary community, particularly supporting and amplifying young writers and female voices. She is the author of two well-received novels, In Dependence (2009) and Like A Mule Bringing Ice Cream To The Sun (2016), as well as the non-fiction collection Between Starshine and Clay: Conversations from the African Diaspora (2022), and her writing has appeared in publications including Granta, Transition, Guernica, and OZY, and previously served as founding Books Editor of OZY. Manyika's work also features in the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nadifa Mohamed</span> Somali-British novelist (born 1981)

Nadifa Mohamed is a Somali-British novelist. She featured on Granta magazine's list "Best of Young British Novelists" in 2013, and in 2014 on the Africa39 list of writers aged under 40 with potential and talent to define future trends in African literature. Her 2021 novel, The Fortune Men, was shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize, making her the first British Somali novelist to get this honour. She has also written short stories, essays, memoirs and articles in outlets including The Guardian, and contributed poetry to the anthology New Daughters of Africa. Mohamed was also a lecturer in Creative Writing in the Department of English at Royal Holloway, University of London until 2021. She will be Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University in Spring 2022.

Afropolitan is a term constructed from the name Africa and the ancient Greek word πολίτης ('politis'), meaning 'citizen'. It is an attempt at redefining African phenomena by, on the one hand, placing emphasis on ordinary citizens' experiences in Africa and, on the other hand, reconceptualizing the African Diaspora's relationship with the African continent. Afropolitanism is used and defined in various ways. The novelist Taiye Selasi and the political theorist Achille Mbembe are immediately associated with the coinage of the term and its fundamental theorization.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Teju Cole</span> Nigerian American writer, photographer, and art historian

Teju Cole is a Nigerian-American writer, photographer, and art historian. He is the author of a novella, Every Day Is for the Thief (2007), a novel, Open City (2011), an essay collection, Known and Strange Things (2016), a photobook Punto d'Ombra, and a second novel, Tremor (2023). Critics have praised his work as having "opened a new path in African literature."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ellah Wakatama Allfrey</span> Zimbabwean editor and literary critic (born 1966)

Ellah Wakatama, OBE, Hon. FRSL, is the Editor-at-Large at Canongate Books, a senior Research Fellow at Manchester University, and Chair of the AKO Caine Prize for African Writing. She was the founding Publishing Director of the Indigo Press. A London-based editor and critic, she was on the judging panel of the 2017 International Dublin Literary Award and the 2015 Man Booker Prize. In 2016, she was a Visiting Professor & Global Intercultural Scholar at Goshen College, Indiana, and was the Guest Master for the 2016 Gabriel Garcia Marquez Foundation international journalism fellowship in Cartagena, Colombia. The former deputy editor of Granta magazine, she was the senior editor at Jonathan Cape, Random House and an assistant editor at Penguin. She is series editor of the Kwani? Manuscript Project and the editor of the anthologies Africa39 and Safe House: Explorations in Creative Nonfiction.

Africa39 was a collaborative project initiated by the Hay Festival in partnership with Rainbow Book Club, celebrating Port Harcourt: UNESCO World Book Capital 2014 by identifying 39 of the most promising writers under the age of 40 with the potential and talent to define trends in the development of literature from Africa and the African diaspora. Launched in 2014, Africa39 followed the success of two previous Hay Festival initiatives linked to World Book Capital cities, Bogotá39 (2007) and Beirut39 (2009).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harriet Anena</span> Ugandan writer and performer

Ber Anena born and previously published as Harriet Anena is a Ugandan writer and performer, whose writing includes poetry, nonfiction and fiction. She is the author of a collection of poems, A Nation In Labour, published in 2015, won the 2018 Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa. The Economist described her poetry performance as "an arresting evocation of love and war".

<i>Daughters of Africa</i> 1992 anthology edited by Margaret Busby

Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Words and Writings by Women of African Descent from the Ancient Egyptian to the Present is a compilation of orature and literature by more than 200 women from Africa and the African diaspora, edited and introduced by Margaret Busby, who compared the process of assembling the volume to "trying to catch a flowing river in a calabash".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margaret Busby</span> Publisher, writer and editor (born 1944)

Margaret Yvonne Busby,, Hon. FRSL, also known as Nana Akua Ackon, is a Ghanaian-born publisher, editor, writer and broadcaster, resident in the UK. She was Britain's youngest and first black female book publisher when she and Clive Allison (1944–2011) co-founded the London-based publishing house Allison and Busby in the 1960s. She edited the anthology Daughters of Africa (1992), and its 2019 follow-up New Daughters of Africa. She is a recipient of the Benson Medal from the Royal Society of Literature. In 2020 she was voted one of the "100 Great Black Britons". In 2021, she was honoured with the London Book Fair Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2023, Busby was named as president of English PEN.

Simi Bedford is a Nigerian novelist based in Britain. Her 1991 debut book Yoruba Girl Dancing, an autobiographical novel about a young Nigerian girl who is sent to England to receive a private school education, was well reviewed on publication and was the subject of a BBC Radio 4 abridgement. Her second novel, Not With Silver, was published in 2007.

Minna Salami is a Finnish Nigerian journalist who has propagated information on African feminist issues, about the African diaspora, and Nigerian women through her award-winning blog MsAfropolitan, which she created and has been editing since 2010. The issues covered in the blog are "ranging from polygamy to feminism to relationships". Apart from blogging she also writes on social issues. She is represented on the Global Educator Network of Duke University, the Africa Network and The Guardian Books Network of The Guardian. Salami's blogs and articles are featured in The Guardian, Al Jazeera and The Huffington Post. She is the recipient of several national awards.

<i>Ghana Must Go</i> (novel) 2013 novel by Taiye Selasi

Ghana Must Go is the debut novel of Taiye Selasi. It was published in 2013, and nominated for an NAACP Image Award. The novel follows the Sai family as they come to terms with their father Kweku Sai's death, and as they work through family troubles. Multiple points of view give insight into the characters' emotions and the repercussions of Kweku’s choices. The Wall Street Journal praised it as "irresistible from the first line".

References

  1. ↑ Lewis, Tim (22 March 2013). "Taiye Selasi: 'I'm very willing to follow my imagination'". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 27 March 2019.
  2. ↑ Selasi, Taiye (22 March 2013). "Taiye Selasi on discovering her pride in her African roots". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 27 March 2019.
  3. ↑ "Prof. Lade Wosornu", University of Dammam.
  4. ↑ "Lade Wosornu". Amazon. 9 September 2009. Retrieved 31 March 2011.
  5. ↑ Markwei, Lawrence (10 April 2010). "Prof. Lade Wosornu Compiles His Articles into A Book". The Ghanaian Times. Archived from the original on 23 August 2011. Retrieved 31 March 2011.
  6. ↑ "Dr. Juliette Tuakli, Child and Reproductive Health, University of Ghana, Legon. The Bill and Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health
  7. ↑ "Juliette Tuakli". Jhsph.edu. Archived from the original on 14 December 2012. Retrieved 31 March 2011.
  8. ↑ Selasi, Taiye (5 April 2013). "Family matters: how novelist Taiye Selasi came to terms with her very modern family". London Evening Standard.
  9. ↑ Selasi, Taiye (23 October 2014). "The loving spoonful". The Economist.
  10. ↑ "Center for the Study of Africa and the African Diaspora - Artist-in-Residence February 2020: Taiye Selasi". 9 October 2019.
  11. 1 2 Selasi, Taiye (3 March 2005). "Bye-Bye, Babar". The LIP Magazine.
  12. ↑ Bady, Aaron, and Taiye Selasi. "From That Stranded Place." Transition 117 (2015): 148. Web.
  13. ↑ Gehrmann, Susanne (11 November 2015). "Cosmopolitanism with African roots. Afropolitanism's ambivalent mobilities". Journal of African Cultural Studies. 28: 61–72. doi:10.1080/13696815.2015.1112770. S2CID   146791639.
  14. ↑ Cohen, Stefanie (28 February 2013). "Growing Up With a Panther Mom". The Wall Street Journal.
  15. ↑ Igarashi, Yuka (10 June 2011). "Taiye Selasi | Interview". Granta.
  16. ↑ Evans, Diana (3 April 2013). "Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi – review". The Guardian.
  17. ↑ Busby, Margaret (29 March 2013). "Reviews | Ghana Must Go, By Taiye Selasi". The Independent .
  18. ↑ "A singular voice", The Economist, 16 March 2013.
  19. ↑ Sacks, Sam (1 March 2013). "An Auspicious How-Do-You-Do". The Wall Street Journal.
  20. ↑ Fischer, Molly (14 June 2010). "Penguin Press Buys First Novel with Salman and Toni's Seal of Approval". New York Observer. Archived from the original on 15 June 2010.
  21. ↑ "The WSJ Best Fiction of 2013". The Wall Street Journal. 13 December 2013.
  22. ↑ "Books of the year: Torrents of words", The Economist, 5 December 2013.
  23. ↑ "david adjaye & taiye selasi: gwangju river reading room", designboom, 20 December 2013.
  24. ↑ Rachman, Tom (13 November 2013). "Tired Metaphors? Ciao, Contestant!". The New York Times .
  25. ↑ Selasi, Taiye (4 July 2015). "Taiye Selasi: stop pigeonholing African writers". The Guardian.
  26. ↑ Tivnan, Tom (20 December 2012). "Taiye Selasi | 'I am a little tired of talking about the African book or African literature'". The Bookseller. Retrieved 23 July 2023.
  27. ↑ "Taiye Selasi: How Do The Places We Call Home Inform Our Identities?". TED Radio Hour. NPR. 15 June 2018. Retrieved 23 July 2023.
  28. ↑ "Don't ask where I'm from, ask where I'm a local". TED | TEDGlobal 2014. 29 September 2015. Retrieved 23 July 2023.
  29. ↑ Onyeakabu, Adaobi (12 March 2019), "Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Taiye Selasi among 200 female contributors for New Daughters of Africa Anthology", Pulse Nigeria.
  30. ↑ Shringarpure, Bhakti (9 September 2020). "Revisiting Afropolitanism: An Interview with Taiye Selasi". Brittle Paper. Retrieved 23 July 2023.
  31. ↑ Ibeh, Chukwuebuka (23 March 2022). "Taiye Selasi's New Children's Book Anansi and the Golden Pot Reimagines the West African Trickster Classic" . Retrieved 23 July 2023.
  32. ↑ Vitzthum, Virginia (15 March 2013). "The Fascinator: Taiye Selasi". ELLE. Retrieved 2 July 2020.
  33. ↑ Cox Westmaas, Juanita (23 April 2013). "Taiye Selasi's 'Ghana Must Go': A Reader's Response". www.thenewblackmagazine.com. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  34. ↑ Whittington, Bella (17 December 2012). "'The Sex Lives of African Girls' by Taiye Selasi". www.litro.co.uk. Retrieved 23 July 2023.
  35. 1 2 3 "Biography Of Taiye Selasi". Media Nigeria. 5 June 2018. Retrieved 27 May 2021.
  36. ↑ Selasi, Taiye (1 November 2016). "African Literature Doesn't Exist". Edition (in English and German) (25). Berlin: Berliner Ensemble. Retrieved 20 January 2022.
  37. ↑ Granta 123: Best of Young British Novelists 4, Spring 2013.
  38. ↑ Allen, Katie (15 April 2013). "Granta list 'proves publishing has broadened horizons'". The Bookseller .
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.