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Namwali Serpell in Conversation with Yael Goldstein Love
April 12, 2019 @ 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm UTC+0
discussing Serpell’s new novel The Old Drift, an electrifying debut that has already garnered three starred advance reviews and accolades from multiple writers.
“Recalling the work of Toni Morrison and Gabriel García Márquez as a sometimes magical, sometimes horrifically real portrait of a place, Serpell’s novel goes into the future of the 2020s, when the various plot threads come together in a startling conclusion. Intricately imagined, brilliantly constructed, and staggering in its scope, this is an astonishing novel.”–Publishers Weekly
On the banks of the Zambezi River, a few miles from the majestic Victoria Falls, there was once a colonial settlement called The Old Drift. Here begins the epic story of a small African nation, told by a mysterious swarm-like chorus that calls itself man’s greatest nemesis. The tale? A playful panorama of history, fairytale, romance and science fiction. The moral? To err is human.
From a woman covered with hair and another plagued with endless tears, to forbidden love affairs and fiery political ones, to homegrown technological marvels like Afronauts, microdrones and viral vaccines – this gripping, unforgettable novel sweeps over the years and the globe, subverting expectations along the way. Exploding with color and energy, The Old Drift is a testament to our yearning to create and cross borders, and a meditation on the slow, grand passage of time.
Namwali Serpell is a Zambian writer who teaches at the UC Berkeley. She received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award for women writers in 2011 and was selected for the Africa 39, a 2014 Hay Festival project to identify the best African writers under 40. She won the 2015 Caine Prize for African writing.
Yael Goldstein Love is co-fouder and Editorial Director of the digital literary studio Plympton. She is also the author of the novels Overture and The Passion of Tasha Darsky, which are actually the same novel. She is currently completing her second novel, set during the Haitian Revolution.