First Fiction 2021
Excerpts from the titles by Eric Nguyen, Lee Lai, Zakiya Dalila Harris, Joss Lake, Pik-Shuen Fung, and the late Anthony Veasna So featured in our annual roundup of the summer’s best debut fiction.
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Department: Feature
First Fiction: Anthony Veasna So
Alex Torres reflects on the literary legacy of his beloved partner, Anthony Veasna So, the author of the debut story collection Afterparties, who died in December 2020.
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How We Remember: A Profile of Clint Smith
In his first nonfiction book, How the Word Is Passed, published in June by Little, Brown, poet and scholar Clint Smith delves into the legacy of slavery alive in the monuments and landmarks within and beyond the United States, in an immersive read that exquisitely depicts how a nation and its inhabitants remember its history.
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Restless Herd: Some Thoughts on Order—in Poetry, in Life
The author of five poetry collections, most recently frank: sonnets, meditates on the idea of order and revisits her past to consider how shaping a book is like forging and acknowledging a self.
Craft Therapy: A Profile of Melissa Febos
In her third book, the essay collection Girlhood, published by Bloomsbury in March, Melissa Febos transforms scars into meditations on culture and psychology.
What We Ought to Do: The Song of Imbolo Mbue
In her second novel, How Beautiful We Were, Imbolo Mbue uses the chorus of voices in a small African village fighting for justice in the shadow of an American oil company to sing in celebration of community, connection, and enduring hope.
The Confounding Insistence on Innocence: A Q&A With Danielle Evans
Ten years after her debut story collection was published, Danielle Evans returns with her second book, The Office of Historical Corrections, a timely reckoning with, among other things, America’s history of racialized violence.
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5 Over 50: 2020
Five authors over the age of fifty—Elizabeth Wetmore, Vivian Gibson, A. H. Kim, Susan Buttenwieser, and Daniel Becker—share excerpts from their first books.
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Leave the Expectations Behind: A Q&A With Rumaan Alam
In his third novel, Leave the World Behind, Rumaan Alam delivers a propulsive narrative that speaks to the challenges and crises of the moment while defying any expectations of what a novel written by a gay Indian man should be.
Truth: A Q&A With Ayad Akhtar
In Homeland Elegies, Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright and novelist Ayad Akhtar blurs the line between fact and fiction in an attempt to reclaim the novel.
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