Namwali Serpell

Serpell began writing The Old Drift almost 20 years ago, while she was studying English at Yale and continued working on it while pursuing a PhD at Harvard. She published exerts of the novel along the way: one section, Muzungu, was selected for The Best American Short Stories 2009 and shortlisted for the 2010 Caine Prize for African writing; while another titled The Sack picked up the 2015 Caine Prize for her story – a monetary prize which she selflessly shared with the other nominated authors.

The genre-bending novel follows three generations of three families and tells the story of a nation over the course of a century. Acclaim for The Old Drift includes Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie calling it a “dazzling debut.”

Serpell is an Associate Professor in the English Faculty at the University of California, Berkley. In 2011, she was awarded a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award for women writers.