I am exhilarated (and more than a bit frightened) to announce that my essay “Because: An Etiology” has been selected for inclusion in The Best American Essays 2024. This essay went through many drafts, different versions, and countless submissions; over the years it received more personalized, “almost” rejections than any other essay I’ve written. So I knew there was something there — and I am especially grateful to Potomac Review for plucking it out of the slush pile! The anthology will be out in October.

Also, as part of their series profiling NEA Translation Fellows, The Center for the Art of Translation asked me a few questions for their blog about translating Walenisi. You can read my answers here!

Finally, my translation of an excerpt of Tom Olali’s experimental Swahili novel Watu wa Gehenna appears in the latest special issue of Michigan Quarterly Review, titled “African Writing: A Partial Cartography of Provocations”, guest edited by Chris Abani. You can hear a recording of the first few pages of the translation here.