The Modern Novel

Biography

Taiye Selasi was born in 1980 in London. However, she is not British nor Ghanaian. I am so over the whole ‘where are you from?’ question. I am! I don’t know how to reply to it any more. I go to Ghana every single year to see my mum who lives there now. But even if I were to say I was from Ghana, which isn’t true, what does that mean? What matters to me is Italian, African, contemporary American, British, and Indian culture. It’s of so much more interest to me than where I’m from. I would love it if people asked me who I am rather than where I’m from. I have put her here because she has a Ghanaian father, the title of her first novel contains the word Ghana (though the title refers to the Nigerian reaction to the Ghanaians in their country) and her surname is Ghanaian, though she would perhaps prefer to be called Afropolitan. Though born in London, she grew up in Brookline, Massachusetts. Both her parents, who divorced when she was young, are doctors. Her mother has been a strong advocate for children’s rights in Africa and her father is a published poet. She read American Studies at Yale and she has an M. Phil. in International Relations from Oxford University. She was one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists.

Other links

Her Twitter account
Taiye Selasi
Family matters: how novelist Taiye Selasi came to terms with her very modern family
Interview
Interview
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Interview