Chimamanda Adichie, Yaa Gyasi, Igoni Barrett, Imbolo Mbue, KOLUMN Magazine, KOLUMN

Get to Know the Cameroonian Author Behind a Million-Dollar Book Deal

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Get to Know the Cameroonian Author Behind a Million-Dollar Book Deal

[two_fifth padding=”0 35px 0 10px”]GET TO KNOW THE CAMEROONIAN AUTHOR BEHIND A MILLION-DOLLAR BOOK DEAL

BY   Erin C.J. Robertson
PUB   Okay Africa [/two_fifth][three_fifth_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”][perfectpullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=”14″]Cameroonian-American novelist Imbolo Mbue joins ranks with authors Chimamanda Adichie of Americanah, Yaa Gyasi of Homegoing and Igoni Barrett of Blackass creating a new canon of African literature.[/perfectpullquote]
Mbue first captured our attention when she inked an exceptional million-dollar deal with Penguin Random House in 2014 for her eagerly awaited debut work Behold the Dreamers, released in March, that tells the story of a Cameroonian couple and their son who settle in Harlem hoping to capture their piece of the American dream amidst the 2008 financial and housing market crisis.

The ‘90s music and tennis-lover, who flashes her winning “million-dollar smile” in Glamour magazine‘s September issue, tells
Essence magazine her big idea arrived while she was taking a stroll through NYC’s Columbus Circle in the spring of 2011 when she noticed chauffeurs waiting for executives in front of the Time Warner building.
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[two_fifth padding=”0 25px 0 10px”]Behold the Dreamers: A Novel
IMBOLO MBUE, AUTHOR[/two_fifth][three_fifth_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”]A compulsively readable debut novel about marriage, immigration, class, race, and the trapdoors in the American Dream—the unforgettable story of a young Cameroonian couple making a new life in New York just as the Great Recession upends the economy

South Africa is a multiethnic society encompassing a wide variety of cultures, languages, and religions. Its pluralistic makeup is reflected in the constitution’s recognition of 11 official languages, which is among the highest number of any country in the world. Two of these languages are of European origin: Afrikaans developed from Dutch and serves as the first language of most white and coloured South Africans; English reflects the legacy of British colonialism, and is commonly used in public and commercial life, though it is fourth-ranked as a spoken first language.


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