How Beautiful We Were
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How Beautiful We Were
''How Beautiful We Were'' is an environment-themed novel written by Cameroonian–American novelist Imbolo Mbue. It is the second novel written by Mbue. Set in a fictional village in Africa, it follows of a set of villagers who challenge the government and an American oil company. Background and inspiration Mbue's novel was influenced by her childhood days in Cameroon. Mbue started writing the novel seventeen years prior to publishing ''Behold the Dreamers'' in 2016. Mbue's "interest was more in writing a story about what happens when a group of people decides to push back against a powerful corporation." She cited Ken Saro-Wiwa and the environmental issues in the Niger Delta as her major influence. Plot summary The story takes us to the village of Kosawa—a fictional settlement in Africa under a monarch system of government. The populace is angered by the entrance of the American oil firm Pexton, which causes an oil spill An oil spill is the release of a liquid petro ...
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Imbolo Mbue
Imbolo Mbue (born 1981) is a Cameroonian-American novelist and short-story writer based in New York City. She is known for her debut novel '' Behold the Dreamers'' (2016), which has garnered her the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the Blue Metropolis Words to Change Award. Her works draw from her own experiences as an immigrant, as well as the experiences of other immigrants. Early life and education Mbue was born in 1981 in Limbe, Cameroon, in the English speaking region of the country, where she was raised until the family sponsored her higher education studies in the United States. After completing her undergraduate and graduate studies, she began a job in marketing for a media company, which she lost during the recession. During this period of time, Mbue observed the difference in classes while walking through New York City, where she observed cab drivers who were predominantly black, waiting to drive executives. This formed the basis of her novel '' Behold the Dreame ...
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Brittle Paper
''Brittle Paper'' is an online literary magazine styled as an "African literary blog" published weekly in the English language. Its focus is on "build(ing) a vibrant African literary scene." It was founded by Ainehi Edoro (at the time a doctoral student from Duke University, now an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison). Since its founding in 2010, ''Brittle Paper'' has published fiction, poetry, essays, creative nonfiction and photography from both established and upcoming African writers and artists in the continent and around the world. A member of ''The Guardian'' Books Network, it has been described as "the village square of African literature", as "Africa's leading literary journal", and as "one of Africa's most on the ball and talked-about literary publications". In 2014, the magazine was named a Go-To Book Blog by ''Publishers Weekly'', who describe it as "an essential source of news about new work by writers of color outside of the United States." F ...
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The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large national audience. Daily broadsheet editions are printed for D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. The ''Post'' was founded in 1877. In its early years, it went through several owners and struggled both financially and editorially. Financier Eugene Meyer purchased it out of bankruptcy in 1933 and revived its health and reputation, work continued by his successors Katharine and Phil Graham (Meyer's daughter and son-in-law), who bought out several rival publications. The ''Post'' 1971 printing of the Pentagon Papers helped spur opposition to the Vietnam War. Subsequently, in the best-known episode in the newspaper's history, reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein led the American press's investigation into what became known as the Watergate scandal ...
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Ron Charles (critic)
Ron Charles (born 1962 in St. Louis, Missouri) is a book critic at ''The Washington Post''. His awards include the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award Nona Balakian Citation for book reviews, and 1st Place for A&E Coverage from the Society for Features Journalism in 2011. He was one of three jurors for the 2014 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. Charles grew up in Town and Country, Missouri, and graduated from Principia College and Washington University before getting a job as a teacher at John Burroughs School. After a student's parent offhandedly suggested he try making a living as a book reviewer, Charles sent his first book review to ''The Christian Science Monitor'', which eventually hired him. He spent seven years as the ''Monitor''s book review editor and staff critic. In 2005, he was hired by the ''Washington Post''. Sometime after August 2010, with his review of Jonathan Franzen's ''Freedom'', Charles began a series of video book reviews for ''Post'' called "The Totally H ...
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Tochi Onyebuchi
Tochi Onyebuchi (born October 4, 1987) is a Nigerian American science fiction and fantasy writer and former civil rights lawyer. His novella, '' Riot Baby'', received an Alex Award from the American Library Association and the World Fantasy Award in 2021. He is known for incorporating civil rights and Afrofuturism into his stories and novels.Krantz, Rachel. (2021, November 8). "Freedom Writer," ''Publishers Weekly'', ''268'' (45): 37-38. via EBSCO, accessed June 23, 2022. Early life Onyebuchi was born in Northampton, Massachusetts. His parents were Nigerian Igbo immigrants Elizabeth Ihuegbu and Nnamdi Onyebuchi, who was a restaurant manager. His first name means "praise God" in Igbo. His family lived in New Britain, Connecticut, until 1998, when his father died at aged 39. His family then moved to Newington, Connecticut, to a mostly white neighborhood. He attended the Choate Rosemary Hall school in Wallingford, Connecticut. He says, "Growing up as the son of Nigerian immigrant ...
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Omar El Akkad
Omar El Akkad (born 1982) is an Egyptian-Canadian novelist and journalist, whose novel ''What Strange Paradise'' was the winner of the 2021 Giller Prize. Early life and education Omar El Akkad was born in Cairo, Egypt, and grew up in Doha, Qatar. When he was 16 years old, he moved to Canada, completing high school in Montreal and university at Queen's University at Kingston, Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. He has a computer science degree. Career For ten years he was a staff reporter for ''The Globe and Mail,'' where he covered the War in Afghanistan (2001–present), war in Afghanistan, military trials at Guantanamo Bay detention camp, Guantanamo Bay and the Arab Spring in Egypt. He was most recently a correspondent for the western United States, where he covered Black Lives Matter. His first novel, ''American War (novel), American War,'' was published in 2017. It received positive reviews from critics; ''The New York Times'' book critic Michiko Kakutani compared i ...
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The New York Times Book Review
''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely read book review publications in the industry. The offices are located near Times Square in New York City. Overview The ''New York Times'' has published a book review section since October 10, 1896, announcing: "We begin today the publication of a Supplement which contains reviews of new books ... and other interesting matter ... associated with news of the day." In 1911, the review was moved to Sundays, on the theory that it would be more appreciatively received by readers with a bit of time on their hands. The target audience is an intelligent, general-interest adult reader. The ''Times'' publishes two versions each week, one with a cover price sold via subscription, bookstores and newsstands; the other with no cover price included as an ...
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Book Marks
Literary Hub is a daily literary website that launched in 2015 by Grove Atlantic president and publisher Morgan Entrekin, American Society of Magazine Editors Hall of Fame editor Terry McDonell, and Electric Literature founder Andy Hunter. Content Focused on literary fiction and nonfiction, ''Literary Hub'' publishes personal and critical essays, interviews, and book excerpts from over 100 partners, including independent presses (New Directions Publishing, Graywolf Press), large publishers (Simon & Schuster, Alfred A. Knopf), bookstores (Book People, Politics and Prose), non-profits (PEN America), and literary magazines (''The Paris Review'', n+1). The mission of ''Literary Hub'' is to be the "site readers can rely on for smart, engaged, entertaining writing about all things books." The website has been featured in ''The Washington Post'', ''The Guardian'', and ''Poets & Writers''. In 2019, Literary Hub launched their new blog, ''The Hub'', alongside LitHub Radio, a "network of ...
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Oil Spill
An oil spill is the release of a liquid petroleum hydrocarbon into the environment, especially the marine ecosystem, due to human activity, and is a form of pollution. The term is usually given to marine oil spills, where oil is released into the ocean or coastal waters, but spills may also occur on land. Oil spills may be due to releases of crude oil from tankers, offshore platforms, drilling rigs and wells, as well as spills of refined petroleum products (such as gasoline, diesel) and their by-products, heavier fuels used by large ships such as bunker fuel, or the spill of any oily refuse or waste oil. Oil spills penetrate into the structure of the plumage of birds and the fur of mammals, reducing its insulating ability, and making them more vulnerable to temperature fluctuations and much less buoyant in the water. Cleanup and recovery from an oil spill is difficult and depends upon many factors, including the type of oil spilled, the temperature of the water (affecting evapor ...
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Literary Fiction
Literary fiction, mainstream fiction, non-genre fiction or serious fiction is a label that, in the book trade, refers to market novels that do not fit neatly into an established genre (see genre fiction); or, otherwise, refers to novels that are character-driven rather than plot-driven, examine the human condition, use language in an experimental or poetic fashion, or are simply considered serious art. ''Literary fiction'' is often used as a synonym for literature, in the exclusive sense of writings specifically considered to have considerable Art, artistic merit. While literary fiction is commonly regarded as artistically superior to genre fiction, the two are not mutually exclusive, and major literary figures have employed the genres of science fiction, crime fiction, Romance novel, romance, etc., to create works of literature. Furthermore, the study of genre fiction has developed within academia in recent decades. Slipstream genre is sometimes located in between the genre and no ...
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National Public Radio
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other non-profit membership media organizations such as the Associated Press, in that it was established by an act of Congress. Most of its member stations are owned by non-profit organizations, including public school districts, colleges, and universities. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of over 1,000 public radio List of NPR stations, stations in the United States. , NPR employed 840 people. NPR produces and distributes news and cultural programming. The organization's flagship shows are two drive time, drive-time news broadcasts: ''Morning Edition'' and the afternoon ''All Things Considered'', both carried by most NPR member stations, and among the List of most-listened-to radio programs, most popular radio p ...
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Fresh Air
''Fresh Air'' is an American radio talk show broadcast on National Public Radio stations across the United States since 1985. It is produced by WHYY-FM in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The show's host is Terry Gross. , the show was syndicated to 624 stations and claimed nearly 5 million listeners. The show is fed live weekdays at 12:00 noon ET. In addition, some stations carry ''Fresh Air Weekend'', a re-programming of highlights of the week's interviews. In 2016, ''Fresh Air'' was the most-downloaded podcast on iTunes. Overview The show began in 1975 at WHYY, with Judy Blank as host. In September of that year, Terry Gross took over as presenter and producer; over 45 years later she remains its chief presenter. In 1985, WHYY launched a weekly half-hour edition of ''Fresh Air'', which was distributed nationally by NPR. The show began daily national broadcasts in 1987. The show is composed primarily of interviews with prominent figures in various fields, among them entertainmen ...
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