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Taiye Selasi

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Taiye Selasi
Selasi at the Erlanger Poetenfest, 2013
Selasi at the Erlanger Poetenfest, 2013
BornTaiye Tuakli
(1979-11-02) 2 November 1979 (age 45)
London, United Kingdom
OccupationNovelist
Alma materYale University; Nuffield College, Oxford
Period2005–present
Literary movementRealism, Drama
Notable worksGhana Must Go (2013)
Website
Taiye Selasi on Twitter

Taiye Selasi (born 2 November 1979) 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.

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]

Her given name means first twin in her mother's native Yoruba. She had changed her surname several times; she was born with her mother's surname, she then adopted her step-father's surname (Williams), at 12 she had her surname changed to her father's (Wosornu), later she decided to adopt the hyphenated surname Tuakli-Wosornu (both her parents' last names), she eventually changed her surname to Selasi, a word from the Ewe language, that she translated as "answered prayer" or "God has heard".[9]

Selasi graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a BA degree in American studies from Yale,[10] and earned her MPhil in international relations from Nuffield College, Oxford.[11] 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.[9]

Career

In 2005 The LIP Magazine published "Bye-Bye, Babar (Or: What is an Afropolitan?)",[12] Selasi's seminal text on Afropolitans. In "Bye Bye Babar", Selasi describes a new African diaspora; a broader mix that accepts its diversity: "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."[12] 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."[13] 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"[14] 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.[15]

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.[16]

In 2010, Ann Godoff at Penguin Press bought Selasi's unfinished novel. Ghana Must Go was published in 2013. It was acclaimed by Diana Evans in The Guardian,[17] Margaret Busby in The Independent,[18] by The Economist,[19] and by The Wall Street Journal.[20] 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.[21][22][23]

In 2013, Selasi was selected as one of Granta′s 20 Best Young British Writers[24][25] and in 2014 named to the Hay Festival's Africa39 list of 39 Sub-Saharan African writers under the age of 40 "with the potential and talent to define trends in African literature."

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.[26] 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 (City of God), Selasi is developing Exodus, a feature documentary about global migration.

In 2013, Selasi was a juror in the Italian reality TV show Masterpiece on Rai 3 with Andrea De Carlo.[27]

Selasi has been outspoken publishers' tendency to pigeonhole African writers, making them bear the burden of representing their continent.[28][29] She chooses to identify herself with localities, rather than with countries, having lived in New York, Berlin, Rome, and Lisbon, as well as regularly visiting Accra.[30][31]

In 2015, she appeared as a Featured Author, leading a writing seminar, at the annual Iceland Writers Retreat in Reykjavik, Iceland.[32] She is also a contributor to the anthology New Daughters of Africa (edited by Margaret Busby, 2019).[33]

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)."[34]

Selasi is the author of the children's book Anansi and the Golden Pot, published in 2022, which she wrote for her son Safa.[35]

Works

Novels

Children's books

  • Anansi and the Golden Pot (2022)

Short stories

  • "The Sex Lives of African Girls" (2011)[37]
  • "Driver" (2013)[38]
  • "Aliens of Extraordinary Ability" (2014)[38]
  • "Brunhilda in Love" (2016)[38]

Essays

  • "African Literature Doesn't Exist" (2013)[39]

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. ^ a b Vitzthum, Virginia (15 March 2013). "The Fascinator: Taiye Selasi". ELLE. Retrieved 2 July 2020.
  10. ^ Selasi, Taiye (23 October 2014). "The loving spoonful". The Economist.
  11. ^ "Center for the Study of Africa and the African Diaspora - Artist-in-Residence February 2020: Taiye Selasi". 9 October 2019.
  12. ^ a b Selasi, Taiye (3 March 2005). "Bye-Bye, Babar". The LIP Magazine.
  13. ^ Bady, Aaron, and Taiye Selasi. "From That Stranded Place." Transition 117 (2015): 148. Web.
  14. ^ 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.
  15. ^ Cohen, Stefanie (28 February 2013). "Growing Up With a Panther Mom". The Wall Street Journal.
  16. ^ Igarashi, Yuka (10 June 2011). "Taiye Selasi | Interview". Granta.
  17. ^ Evans, Diana (3 April 2013). "Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi – review". The Guardian.
  18. ^ Busby, Margaret (29 March 2013). "Reviews | Ghana Must Go, By Taiye Selasi". The Independent.
  19. ^ "A singular voice", The Economist, 16 March 2013.
  20. ^ Sacks, Sam (1 March 2013). "An Auspicious How-Do-You-Do". The Wall Street Journal.
  21. ^ 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.
  22. ^ "The WSJ Best Fiction of 2013". The Wall Street Journal. 13 December 2013.
  23. ^ "Books of the year: Torrents of words", The Economist, 5 December 2013.
  24. ^ Granta 123: Best of Young British Novelists 4, Spring 2013.
  25. ^ Allen, Katie (15 April 2013). "Granta list 'proves publishing has broadened horizons'". The Bookseller.
  26. ^ "david adjaye & taiye selasi: gwangju river reading room", designboom, 20 December 2013.
  27. ^ Rachman, Tom (13 November 2013). "Tired Metaphors? Ciao, Contestant!". The New York Times.
  28. ^ Selasi, Taiye (4 July 2015). "Taiye Selasi: stop pigeonholing African writers". The Guardian.
  29. ^ 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.
  30. ^ "Taiye Selasi: How Do The Places We Call Home Inform Our Identities?". TED Radio Hour. NPR. 15 June 2018. Retrieved 23 July 2023.
  31. ^ "Don't ask where I'm from, ask where I'm a local". TED | TEDGlobal 2014. 29 September 2015. Retrieved 23 July 2023.
  32. ^ "IWR 2015". Iceland Writers Retreat. 7 June 2016. Retrieved 13 February 2020.
  33. ^ Onyeakabu, Adaobi (12 March 2019), "Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Taiye Selasi among 200 female contributors for New Daughters of Africa Anthology", Pulse Nigeria.
  34. ^ Shringarpure, Bhakti (9 September 2020). "Revisiting Afropolitanism: An Interview with Taiye Selasi". Brittle Paper. Retrieved 23 July 2023.
  35. ^ 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.
  36. ^ Cox Westmaas, Juanita (23 April 2013). "Taiye Selasi's 'Ghana Must Go': A Reader's Response". www.thenewblackmagazine.com. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  37. ^ Whittington, Bella (17 December 2012). "'The Sex Lives of African Girls' by Taiye Selasi". www.litro.co.uk. Retrieved 23 July 2023.
  38. ^ a b c "Biography Of Taiye Selasi". Media Nigeria. 5 June 2018. Retrieved 27 May 2021.
  39. ^ Selasi, Taiye (1 November 2016). "African Literature Doesn't Exist". Edition (in English and German) (25). Berlin: Berliner Ensemble. Retrieved 20 January 2022.
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