Areej Nur and Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah at the Athenaeum Theatre — Photo: Jon Tjhia

Endorsed by the likes of Roxane Gay, Colson Whitehead and George Saunders – and by the New York Times bestseller list – Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is a star on the rise.

The 27-year-old African American author made his debut last year with Friday Black, a mind-bending and provocative collection of short stories about consumerism, race, technology and the violence of the modern world. By turns absurdly surreal and brutally recognisable, and often humming with dark humour, the book’s stories coincide with many of our moment’s most urgent issues; Adjei-Brenyah describes them as concerned with ‘problems inherent to the project of America’.

Appearing for the first time in Melbourne for our Mayhem series, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah speaks with Areej Nur about his six years of writing, workshopping and rewriting Friday Black – and what comes next.

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