![]() Where There Was Fire (Flatiron, Sept.) interweaves the tale of a Costa Rican family with the nefarious mid-20th-century history of the fruit companies that sought to transform the country into “one giant plantation,” as Arias writes in the novel. “When I was back in Costa Rica, everyone was like, they’re going to send you to jail, right?” “They have the most powerful lawyers in the world,” Arias says. “I thought I couldn’t possibly write something that’s enjoyable and still have it be a good book,” she laughs.įor John Manuel Arias, writing about the Costa Rican banana industry was risky business. But as the project progressed, she decided to infuse the novel with both her natural sense of satire and high drama. When Adegoke started writing, she forced herself to be “stoic and serious,” she says, having internalized the stigma around propulsive or commercial plots, especially for women writers. Morrow v-p and editorial director Jessica Williams calls The List a “bold, wildly entertaining, and wise exploration of the real-world impact of online life.” Hayley Steed, Adegoke’s agent at Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency, praises the novel for “exploring the nuance and ‘gray’ of seemingly black-and-white issues” and “the way in which we navigate a world ready to go to war in the name of an ism.” “With Ola, as someone who has made a name as a spokesperson for women, the conflict within her was really visceral.” “No one actually knows what they would do until they’re in that scenario,” Adegoke says. The list causes a rift in their marriage, however, and creates a backlash for Ola, who is accused of being a traitor to the feminist cause. After Ola sees her fiancé’s name on a viral list of abusers, he denies any impropriety, and they proceed with their wedding. Ola, the protagonist of The List, is a prominent Black journalist who writes for a site called Womxxxn. She has gone on to cover culture for the Guardian and Vogue, and published a nonfiction book in the U.K., Slay in Your Lane: The Black Girl Bible. She tried to break into journalism after college, but the pieces she was pitching on race and feminism weren’t landing-“The conversation on race was very primordial at that time,” she says, referring to the years shortly before Black Lives Matter-so she started her own magazine, Birthday, which was geared toward young Black women. “The novel for me is first and foremost about the internet,” Adegoke says, but she chose this vehicle because the ethics of anonymous allegations raised such thorny and narratively rich issues.Īdegoke, the daughter of Nigerian immigrants, has lived in Croydon in South London for most of her life. entertainment and media scene, could just have easily been a fake review on Tripadvisor. ![]() Yomi Adegoke claims that the inspiration for her novel, The List (Morrow, Sept.), a real-life spreadsheet for anonymously naming abusers in the U.K.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |