Scan barcode
A review by criticalgayze
Stranger Faces by Namwali Serpell
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
Last semester, I took a graduate level class on contemporary literary theory. This was both the exact right book and the exact wrong book to read with those ideas floating around in my head.
Writers like Serpell who can vacillate what feels like flawlessly (knowing that the more flawless it looks, the more work it requires) between amazing literary novels (The Old Drift is a modern classic.) and this kind of high calibur academic nonfiction truly make me sick in the jealous bones of my aspiring writer's skeleton. Serpell is truly among the likes of the select few (Roxane Gay and Brandon Taylor spring most readily to mind) who can make any subject or form compelling.
Will most definitely be getting to her 2022 New York Times Top 10 book The Furrows in February.
Writers like Serpell who can vacillate what feels like flawlessly (knowing that the more flawless it looks, the more work it requires) between amazing literary novels (The Old Drift is a modern classic.) and this kind of high calibur academic nonfiction truly make me sick in the jealous bones of my aspiring writer's skeleton. Serpell is truly among the likes of the select few (Roxane Gay and Brandon Taylor spring most readily to mind) who can make any subject or form compelling.
Will most definitely be getting to her 2022 New York Times Top 10 book The Furrows in February.