The Old Drift

Last updated
The Old Drift
The Old Drift.jpg
First edition
Author Namwali Serpell
Country Zambia
LanguageEnglish
Genre Historical fiction, Science fiction
Set in Rhodesia, Zambia 1903 - 2023
Publisher Hogarth Press
Publication date
March 21, 2019
Media typePrint (hardcover and paperback), audiobook, e-book
Awards
2020 Arthur C. Clarke Award

2020 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award

ISBN 9781101907146

The Old Drift is a 2019 historical fiction and science fiction novel by Zambian author Namwali Serpell. Set in Rhodesia/Zambia, it is Serpell's debut novel and follows the lives of three interwoven families in three generations. [1] [2] It won the 2020 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award [3] as well as the Arthur C. Clarke Award. [4]

Contents

Plot

The novel is a saga that follows three families: one Zambian, one Italian, and one Indian. These families are intertwined by the actions of the novel's first narrator, Percy M. Clark, [5] who is based on a real man from Cambridge, England, who moved to Zambia (then Rhodesia) in the early 20th century as one of Europe's many colonists across the African continent. In the novel's first chapter, Percy details some of his encounters as an early settler in The Old Drift, a settlement near Victoria Falls. He details the settlement's changing name, its growing population, and his racist views of the native Zambians. On one such occasion, Percy's actions at a bar one night cause a young girl to strike a young Zambian boy so hard that "he became an imbecile, forever smiling at the daisies," as Percy says. This Zambian boy reappears when Percy accidentally shoots him one day, and later learns that his name is N'gulube. This series of events is the cause behind the intertwining of the families, which is slowly revealed through the rest of the novel as Serpell details the lives of the family members on the family tree: the Grandmothers (Sibilla, Agnes, and Matha), the Mothers (Sylvia, Isabella, and Thandiwe), and their Children (Joseph, Jacob, and Naila).

Reception

The book received positive reviews from critics. [6] Reviewing it in The Guardian , Nadifa Mohamed wrote: "Namwali Serpell’s first novel is a rambunctious epic that traces the intertwined histories of three families over three generations. …Serpell is an ambitious and talented writer, with the chutzpah to work on a huge canvas." [7] The Observer 's review concluded, "By the end, set in a near future involving a new digital device embedded in the user’s skin, we realise how slyly Serpell is testing our assumptions, before a cunning last-minute swerve forces us to question why we don’t consider science fiction a viable mode for the great African novel." [8]

In The Old Drift, Serpell experiments with different forms of narrative in order to help readers view the story from different viewpoints. NPR's Annalisa Quinn called Serpell's narrative style "florid, but the excess often comes with a point. These are indeed three ways humans think about space: As something legible and predictive, as a resource to exploit, and as a source of beauty and awe. You also get the sense that the descriptive excess is a conscious choice". [9]

Awards

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kamila Shamsie</span> Pakistani and British writer and novelist (born 1973)

Kamila Shamsie FRSL is a Pakistani and British writer and novelist who is best known for her award-winning novel Home Fire (2017). Named on Granta magazine's list of 20 best young British writers, Shamsie has been described by The New Indian Express as "a novelist to reckon with and to look forward to." She also writes for publications including The Guardian, New Statesman, Index on Censorship and Prospect, and broadcasts on radio.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James McBride (writer)</span> American journalist (born 1957)

James McBride is an American writer and musician. He is the recipient of the 2013 National Book Award for fiction for his novel The Good Lord Bird.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lan Samantha Chang</span> American fiction writer

Lan Samantha Chang is an American novelist and short story writer. She is the author of The Family Chao (2022) and short story collection Hunger. For her fiction, which explores Chinese American experiences, she is a recipient of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the Berlin Prize, the PEN/Open Book Award and the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award.

Mary Helen Stefaniak is an American writer. She comes from the family of Croats from Hungary, that originates from Novo Selo (Tótújfalu) in Hungary, being thus a part of the indigenous Croatian minority in that country. She is the author of the books Self Storage and Other Stories,The Turk and My Mother, and The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia. Her collection of short stories Self Storage and Other Stories, received the Banta Award from the Wisconsin Library Association for the best book published by a Wisconsin author in 1997. She is also the winner of the Binghamton University John Gardner Fiction Book Award for her first novel, The Turk and My Mother, which has been translated into several languages. Stefaniak has been featured twice in the anthology New Stories from the South: The Year's Best,. In September 2010, independent publishers rated her novel The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia as an Indie-Next "Great Read".

The Anisfield-Wolf Book Award is an American literary award dedicated to honoring written works that make important contributions to the understanding of racism and the appreciation of the rich diversity of human culture. Established in 1935 by Cleveland poet and philanthropist Edith Anisfield Wolf and originally administered by the Saturday Review, the awards have been administered by the Cleveland Foundation since 1963.

Edward Festus Mukuka Nkoloso (1919–1989) was a member of the Zambian resistance movement and the founder of the Zambia National Academy of Science, Space Research and Philosophy. He was especially famous for attempting a space programme and its "Afronauts" have been the subject of subsequent art works and documentaries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karan Mahajan</span> American novelist

Karan Mahajan is an Indian-American novelist, essayist, and critic. His second novel, The Association of Small Bombs, was a finalist for the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction. He has contributed writing to The Believer, The Daily Beast, the San Francisco Chronicle, Granta, and The New Yorker. In 2017, he was named one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists.

<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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Esi Edugyan</span> Canadian novelist (born 1978)

Esi Edugyan is a Canadian novelist. She has twice won the Giller Prize, for her novels Half-Blood Blues (2011) and Washington Black (2018).

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).

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Namwali Serpell</span> Zambian feminist academic and writer (born 1980)

Namwali Serpell is an American and Zambian writer who teaches in the United States. In April 2014, she was named on Hay Festival's Africa39 list of 39 sub-Saharan African writers aged under 40 with the potential and talent to define trends in African literature. Her short story "The Sack" won the 2015 Caine Prize for African fiction in English. In 2020, Serpell won the Belles-lettres category Grand Prix of Literary Associations 2019 for her debut novel The Old Drift.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aké Arts and Book Festival</span> Annual literary event in Nigeria

The Aké Arts and Book Festival is a literary and artistic event held annually in Nigeria. It was founded in 2013 by Lola Shoneyin, a Nigerian writer and poet, in Abeokuta. It features new and established writers from across the world, and its primary focus has been to promote, develop, and celebrate the creativity of African writers, poets, and artists. The Aké Arts and Book Festival has been described as the African continent's biggest annual gathering of literary writers, editors, critics, and readers. The festival has an official website and a dedicated magazine, known as the Aké Review.

Tade Thompson FRSL is a British-born Nigerian psychiatrist and writer of Yoruba descent. He is best known for his 2016 science fiction novel Rosewater, which won a Nommo Award and Arthur C. Clarke Award.

AnnaLinden Weller, better known under her pen name Arkady Martine, is an American author of science fiction literature. Her first novels A Memory Called Empire (2019) and A Desolation Called Peace (2021), which form the Teixcalaan series, each won the Hugo Award for Best Novel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Suyi Davies Okungbowa</span> Nigerian author

Suyi Davies Okungbowa is a Nigerian fantasy, science fiction and speculative writer and academic. He is the author of various novels, including The Nameless Republic epic fantasy trilogy, beginning with Son of the Storm. His debut was the godpunk fantasy novel, David Mogo, Godhunter. He has also written works for younger readers under the author name Suyi Davies, including Minecraft: The Haven Trials. His work is heavily influenced by the histories and cultures of West Africa and Nigeria, and discusses themes of identity, challenging difference and finding home. WIRED referred to him as "one of the most promising new voices coterie of African SFF writers." He is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Ottawa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nommo Awards</span> African literary award

The Nommo Awards are literary awards presented by The African Speculative Fiction Society. The awards recognize works of speculative fiction by Africans, defined as "science fiction, fantasy, stories of magic and traditional belief, alternative histories, horror and strange stuff that might not fit in anywhere else."

Africanfuturism is a cultural aesthetic and philosophy of science that centers on the fusion of African culture, history, mythology, point of view, with technology based in Africa and not limiting to the diaspora. It was coined by Nigerian American writer Nnedi Okorafor in 2019 in a blog post as a single word. Nnedi Okorafor defines Africanfuturism as a sub-category of science fiction that is "directly rooted in African culture, history, mythology and point-of-view..and...does not privilege or center the West," is centered with optimistic "visions in the future," and is written by "people of African descent" while rooted in the African continent. As such its center is African, often does extend upon the continent of Africa, and includes the Black diaspora, including fantasy that is set in the future, making a narrative "more science fiction than fantasy" and typically has mystical elements. It is different from Afrofuturism, which focuses mainly on the African diaspora, particularly the United States. Works of Africanfuturism include science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, horror and magic realism.

<i>Rosewater</i> (Thompson novel) 2016 science fiction novel by Tade Thompson

Rosewater is a 2016 science fiction novel by Nigerian-British writer Tade Thompson. It was followed by two sequels: The Rosewater Insurrection and The Rosewater Redemption which were published in 2019 simultaneously. The novel won the inaugural Nommo Award as well as the 2019 Arthur C. Clarke Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Furrows</span> 2022 novel by Namwali Serpell

The Furrows is a 2022 novel by Namwali Serpell, an American and Zambian author.

References

  1. ↑ "The Old Drift". www.goodreads.com. Retrieved 2021-08-22.
  2. ↑ Garner, Dwight (2019-03-25). "'The Old Drift' Is a Dazzling Debut Spanning Four Generations". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2021-08-22.
  3. 1 2 "Namwali Serpell Wins the 2020 Anisfield-Wolf Award for The Old Drift". Brittle Paper. 2020-04-04. Retrieved 2021-08-22.
  4. 1 2 "'The great African novel of the 21st century': Namwali Serpell wins Arthur C Clarke award". the Guardian. 2020-09-23. Retrieved 2021-08-22.
  5. ↑ "Percy Missen Clark – Rhodesian Study Circle" . Retrieved 2021-11-12.
  6. ↑ "Book Marks reviews of The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell". Book Marks. Retrieved 2022-11-15.
  7. ↑ Mohamed, Nadifa (14 March 2019), "The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell review – genre-blending Zambian debut", The Guardian.
  8. ↑ Cummins, Anthony (10 March 2019), "The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell – review: Sci-fi meets forbidden love in a debut novel spanning centuries and continents", The Observer.
  9. ↑ "'The Old Drift' Takes The Long View Of Human (And Mosquito) History". NPR.org. Retrieved 2020-12-08.
  10. ↑ "2020 GPLA Winners".
  11. ↑ locusmag (2020-05-15). "2020 Nommo Awards Shortlist". Locus Online. Retrieved 2021-08-22.
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.