Double Men

Namwali Serpell was born in Zambia in 1980 and is associate professor of English at UC Berkeley. Her work hasappeared in Tin House, n + 1, McSweeney’s, The Believer, theSan Francisco Chronicle and the Guardian. She receiveda Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award; was selected as one of the Africa 39, a Hay Festival Project to identify the39 best African writers under 40; appeared in The BestAmerican Short Stories 2009; was shortlisted for the CainePrize for African Writing in 2010, and won the Caine Prizein 2015. On reading Jane Eyre, she says: “I first read it inone long, fevered sitting that took me through the night to agrey, rainy morning. It was 1995 and I was back in Zambiafor a year of secondary school. Perhaps that’s why my storycommingles these two versions of home: my country and thewild landscape of letters into which I so often escape. Janehas always seemed my spiritual double.”

Praise for the full collection, READER, I MARRIED HIM:‘A terrific set of stories by some of our leading novelists, each of whom engages with a chosen aspect of Jane Eyre’ THE NEW STATESMAN‘A clever idea well-executed; a treat for fans of short fiction and for Brontë's many ardent fans’ KIRKUS REVIEWS‘Exemplary…written by some of today's best female writers’ THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE‘These pieces create a beguiling picture of women and men and desire, in which everyone is searching, like Jane, for happiness and wondering whether marriage is really an answer. The book acts as a prism spreading all kinds of literary and historical refractions, and it’s a reminder that Charlotte Brontë, too, has many sides’ GLOBE AND MAIL