Namwali Serpell

NAMWALI SERPELL is a Zambian writer and a Professor of English at Harvard University. She received a Windham-Campbell Prize for fiction in 2020, the 2015 Caine Prize for African Writing, and a 2011 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award. Her first novel, THE OLD DRIFT, won the Anisfield-Wolf Book prize, the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science Fiction, and the L.A. Times’ Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction; it was named one of the 100 Notable Books of 2019 by the New York Times. Her second novel, THE FURROWS, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and was named one of the New York Times’ 10 Best Books of 2022. Her nonfiction book, STRANGER FACES, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism.

Photo Credit: Jordan Kines