Namwali Serpell Quotes

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. Wikipedia  

✵ 1980
Namwali Serpell photo
Namwali Serpell: 2   quotes 0   likes

Namwali Serpell Quotes

“I probably seem quite at ease now saying I’m mixed race, I’m black, I’m Zambian, but for a while that was quite torturous, quite angsty. As a young woman I wasn’t very tender or nice to myself…Now I’m older, I’m much more able to be tender and kind to the younger me that I see in the book.”

Source: On coming to terms with her mixed race identity in “Namwali Serpell: 'As a young woman I wasn’t very nice to myself'” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/apr/30/namwali-serpell-the-old-drift-interview in The Guardian (2019 Apr 30)

“To me, blackness is just part of what the family is.”

Source: On how the binary system of race differs in Zambia from the United States in “Namwali Serpell: 'As a young woman I wasn’t very nice to myself'” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/apr/30/namwali-serpell-the-old-drift-interview in The Guardian (2019 Apr 30)

Similar authors

Patrick Rothfuss photo
Patrick Rothfuss 236
American fantasy writer
Gerard Way photo
Gerard Way 1
American musician and comic book writer
Markus Zusak photo
Markus Zusak 214
Australian author
Laurell K. Hamilton photo
Laurell K. Hamilton 261
Novelist
Rick Riordan photo
Rick Riordan 1402
American writer
P. C. Cast photo
P. C. Cast 136
American writer
Carlos Ruiz Zafón photo
Carlos Ruiz Zafón 149
Spanish writer
Jenny Han photo
Jenny Han 226
American writer
Malala Yousafzai photo
Malala Yousafzai 38
Pakistani children's education activist
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon 752
Novelist