Nana Nkweti, a proud Cameroonian-American, is an AKO Caine Prize finalist and alumna of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Walking On Cowrie Shells, Nkweti’s debut book of 10 short stories, weaves together aspects of Cameroonian and American cultures to tell complex and interesting stories.
Currently, Nkweti is a professor of English at the University of Alabama. Read on to find out more about Nkweti and her latest book.
What is the story behind the title?
The title is a play on the idiomatic expression, “walking on eggshells.” I’m talking about a lot of people who have grown up in this liminal space between being African and being American. With the Comic-Con store, a character in the story is trying to figure out “what do I want to be when I grow up?” She literally goes and puts on all the different costumes of a superhero, even though she’s a little shy girl inside. She’s in that space, when you’re trying to figure out, how do I belong? Where do I belong? What do I want from life? Is that good? Fittingly, that space that feels tentative, it feels like you’re walking on cowrie shells, hence, the title.
Why did you decide to write this book?
People have been asking me that. It’s so interesting, because when you’re just writing stories you like, sometimes people are asking you to write to a certain vein. As you can tell from my collection, there [are] Comic-Con stories and stories with mermaid deities and then there’s zombie apocalypse stories. I get excited about exploring new worlds and being in new characters’ perspectives and love writing from different voices. I love the themes about trying to figure out where you stand in life and I think that’s one of those central human conflicts, right? Stories are nothing without conflict.
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