This week on the Sewanee Review Podcast, editor-at-large Sidik Fofana is joined by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, whose most recent novel Chain-Gang All-Stars was a finalist for the 2023 National Book Award for Fiction. In this conversation, Fofana and Adjei-Brenyah discuss the value of short-form narratives, the impossible goal of “winning” capitalism, and the dangers of recreating the violence one seeks to dismantle through writing. “Violence is very attractive culturally, for us, especially as Americans. If you employ violence,” says Adjei-Brenyah, “I almost feel like the onus is doubly on you to make sure that isn’t taken in a way that can be misread.”
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s debut collection, Friday Black, was a New York Times bestseller, won the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Award and the Dylan Thomas Prize. Adjei-Brenyah is a National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” honoree. Sidik Fofana is a graduate of NYU’s MFA program and a public school teacher in Brooklyn. His work has appeared in the Sewanee Review and Granta. His debut short story collection, Stories from the Tenants Downstairs, was published by Scribner in 2022.
The Sewanee Review Podcast is recorded in the Ralston Listening Room at the University of the South. This episode is produced by Luke Gair and edited by ProPodcast Solutions with music by Annie Bowers. Image credit to Alex M. Philip. Don’t miss any of our conversations with some of today’s best writers. Subscribe to the Sewanee Review Podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.