Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is an American writer of fiction known for his formally inventive, socially charged short stories and his debut novel. Born in Spring Valley, New York, he holds an MFA from Syracuse University, where he studied under George Saunders. His debut short story collection, Friday Black (2018), was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and won the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, and the Saroyan Prize. It was also a finalist for multiple other awards. The collection's stories use speculative and satirical techniques to examine American consumer culture, racial violence, and systemic inequality. Adjei-Brenyah's debut novel Chain-Gang All-Stars (2023) was a New York Times bestseller, a finalist for the National Book Award, and longlisted for the Booker Prize. The novel imagines a future in which prisoners fight to the death for entertainment, drawing explicit connections to mass incarceration and American racial capitalism. He has received the Whiting Award and fellowships from MacDowell and Yaddo. His work has been published in The New York Times Book Review, Guernica, Ploughshares, and other journals. He teaches creative writing and lives in New York.