WALKING ON COWRIE SHELLS
Short Stories
A “boisterous and high-spirited debut” (Kirkus starred review)“that enthralls the reader through their every twist and turn” (Publishers Weekly starred review)
In her powerful debut story collection, Nana Nkweti’s virtuosity is on full display as she mixes deft realism with clever inversions of genre. In the Caine Prize finalist story “It Takes a Village, Some Say,” she skewers racial prejudice and the practice of international adoption, delivering a sly tale about a teenage girl who leverages her adoptive parents to fast-track her fortunes. In “The Devil Is a Liar” a pregnant pastor’s wife struggles with the collision of Western Christianity and her mother’s traditional Cameroonian belief system as she worries about her unborn child.
A “boisterous and high-spirited debut” (Kirkus starred review)“that enthralls the reader through their every twist and turn” (Publishers Weekly starred review)
In her powerful debut story collection, Nana Nkweti’s virtuosity is on full display as she mixes deft realism with clever inversions of genre. In the Caine Prize finalist story “It Takes a Village, Some Say,” she skewers racial prejudice and the practice of international adoption, delivering a sly tale about a teenage girl who leverages her adoptive parents to fast-track her fortunes. In “The Devil Is a Liar” a pregnant pastor’s wife struggles with the collision of Western Christianity and her mother’s traditional Cameroonian belief system as she worries about her unborn child.
In other stories, Nkweti vaults past realism, upending genre expectations in a satirical romp about a jaded PR professional trying to spin a zombie outbreak in West Africa, and in a mermaid tale about a Mami Wata who forgoes her power by remaining faithful to a fisherman she loves. In between these two ends of the spectrum there’s everything from an aspiring graphic novelist at a comic con, to a murder investigation driven by statistics, to a story organized by the changing hairstyles of the main character.
Pulling from mystery, horror, realism, myth, and graphic novels, Nkweti showcases the complexity and vibrance of characters whose lives span Cameroonian and American cultures.
- Graywolf Press
- Paperback
- June 2021
- 200 Pages
- 9781644450543
Buy the Book
$16.00
About Nana Nkweti
Nana Nkweti is a Caine Prize finalist and alumna of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her work has garnered fellowships from MacDowell, Kimbilio, Ucross, and the Wurlitzer Foundation, among others. She is a professor of English at the University of Alabama.
Praise
“[Walking on Cowrie Shells] revels in variety—of character, style, and even genre. . . . Lively and fast-paced, funny and tragic, these stories refuse a singular African experience in favor of a vivid plurality.”—The New Yorker
“Raucous and thoroughly impressive. . . . Nkweti’s utterly original stories range from laugh-out-loud funny to heartbreaking, and are often both. . . . Sensitivity, nuance and keen attention to history shine through on every page of the collection. . . . These are stories to get lost in again and again.”—The New York Times Book Review
Discussion Questions
1. The stories in Walking on Cowrie Shells create worlds unto themselves. Name three examples of how Nkweti uses different storytelling techniques—such as voice, perspective, suspense, humor—to create different effects for the reader.
2. Cameroonian American characters in the collection must grapple at times with not easily fitting into either culture. How does this play out for them? How do they carve out places for themselves?
3. The Maroua Market, referred to in “Night Becomes Us,” was hit by a suicide bombing in 2015. How does this knowledge affect the reading of this story?
4. The eerie and satirical tale “It Just Kills You Inside” revolves around a zombie outbreak in Cameroon’s Lake Nyos. Though it was written before, how is the experience of reading this story different in light of the COVID-19 pandemic?
5. Why might the romantic relationship in “The Living Infinite” be considered unconventional? Does this couple bring to mind any other powerful matches in literature, mythology, or popular culture?
6. The cultural myth of monolithic Blackness often creates real pressure to oversimplify Blackness to a few known dimensions. How do the narratives in Walking on Cowrie Shells complicate this myth and offer varying representations of Blackness? In which moments is this tension most extreme?
7. Women take center stage in these narratives—not just the young female protagonists, but their aunties, their little sisters, their frenemies. What are a few of the myriad ways these stories explore the complexities of African womanhood? In what ways do these characters push against boundaries and expectations?
8. Nkweti chooses not to translate any of the non-English words. What effect does this have for the reader who understands these languages? What effect does this have for those who do not?
9. The title comes from page 170 when Jennifer says “She felt like a counterfeit African, felt the unworthiness of the maid’s child tiptoeing through the servants’ entrance, lightly, quietly, like she was walking on cowrie shells.” How does that title phrase relate to Jennifer’s experience in this story? How does it relate to the collection as a whole?