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Taiye Selasi

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Taiye Selasi
September 2013, Manfred Sause
September 2013, Manfred Sause
BornTaiye Selasi
(1979-11-02) 2 November 1979 (age 45)
London, United Kingdom
OccupationNovelist
NationalityBritish
Alma materYale University; Nuffield College, Oxford
Period2005–present
Literary movementRealism, Drama

Taiye Selasi (born 2 November 1979) is a writer and photographer of Nigerian and Ghanaian origin.[1]

Early life and education

Selasi was born in London, England, and raised in Brookline, Massachusetts, the elder of twin daughters in a family of physicians. She graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a BA in American Studies from Yale, and earned her MPhil in International Relations from Nuffield College, Oxford.[2]

Taiye means first twin in her mother's native Yoruba.

Selasi's twin sister, Dr. Yetsa Kehinde Tuakli, is a physiatrist in the US. A passionate champion of African paralympians, Tuakli competes in the long jump for Ghana's national team.[3] Selasi's mother, Dr. Juliette Tuakli, is a paediatrician in Ghana.[4][5] Renowned for her advocacy of children's rights, she sits on the board of United Way. Selasi's father, Dr. Lade Wosornu, is a surgeon in Saudi Arabia.[6] Considered one of Ghana's foremost public intellectuals, he has published numerous volumes of poetry.[7][8]

Selasi's parents split when she was an infant. She met her biological father at the age of 12.[9]

Career

In 2005 The LIP Magazine published "Bye-Bye, Babar (Or: What is an Afropolitan?)",[10] Selasi's seminal text on Afropolitans. The same year she penned a play, which was produced at a small theatre by Dr. Avery Willis, Toni Morrison's niece.[11]

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.[12]

In 2010 Ann Godoff at Penguin Press bought Selasi's unfinished novel. Ghana Must Go was published in 2013 to much critical acclaim.[13][14][15] Selected as one of the 10 Best Books of 2013 by the Wall Street Journal and The Economist, it has been sold in 22 countries as of 2014.[16][17]

In 2013 Selasi was selected as one of Granta′s 20 Best Young British Writers[18] 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."

With Teddy Goitom of Stocktown Films, Selasi is Executive Producer of "Afripedia," a visual guide to the art, film, design and music of African creatives worldwide.[19] With producers Fernando Meirelles and Hank Levine (City of God), Selasi is developing "Exodus," a feature documentary about global migration.[20]

Works

Novels

Short stories

  • "Aliens of Extraordinary Ability" (2014)
  • "Driver" (2013)
  • "The Sex Lives of African Girls" (2011)

References

  1. ^ http://www.isoldeb.com/pressImages/Afropolitan.pdf
  2. ^ "Taiye Selasi" (profile with video), Ghana Rising, 25 February 2012.
  3. ^ Virginia Vitzthum, "The Fascinator: Taiye Selasi", Elle, 15 March 2013.
  4. ^ "Dr. Juliette Tuakli, Child and Reproductive Health, University of Ghana, Legon.The Bill and Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health
  5. ^ "Juliette Tuakli". Jhsph.edu. Retrieved 31 March 2011.
  6. ^ wosornu.com
  7. ^ "lade wosornu". Amazon.com. 9 September 2009. Retrieved 31 March 2011.
  8. ^ "Prof. Lade Wosornu Compiles His Articles into A Book". The Ghanaian Times. Retrieved 31 March 2011. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  9. ^ "Family matters: how novelist Taiye Selasi came to terms with her very modern family", London Evening Standard, 5 April 2013.
  10. ^ Taiye Tuakli-Wosornu, "Bye-Bye, Babar", The LIP Magazine, 3 March 2005.
  11. ^ Stefanie Cohen, "Growing Up With a Panther Mom", The Wall Street Journal, 28 February 2013.
  12. ^ "Interview: Taiye Selasi", Granta, 10 June 2011
  13. ^ Aaron Bady, "Ambitious Conditions: Taiye Selasi’s 'Ghana Must Go'", The New Inquiry, 8 March 2014.
  14. ^ Nell Freudenberger, "Home and Exile – ‘Ghana Must Go,’ by Taiye Selasi", The New York Times, 8 March 2013.
  15. ^ Margaret Busby, "Ghana Must Go, By Taiye Selasi" (review), The Independent, 29 March 2013.
  16. ^ Molly Fischer, "Penguin Press Buys First Novel with Salman and Toni’s Seal of Approval", New York Observer, 14 June 2010.
  17. ^ "New Fiction: A singular voice", The Economist, 16 March 2013.
  18. ^ Granta 123: Best of Young British Novelists 4.
  19. ^ http://www.afripedia.com/
  20. ^ http://exodusmovie.org/

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