Entertainment Africa
Imbolo Mbue is no doubt living the dreams many writers wish for. From a $1 million book deal to winning the PEN/Faulkner Award and now having her book selected by Oprah Winfrey for the Oprah Winfrey Book Club. Ee at TIA can only keep wishing for more opportunities to break the ceiling. Congratulations Imbolo Mbue.
Imbolo Mbue Photo: @imbolombue/Facebook
Cameroonian writer, Imbolo Mbue might as well be in a dream with the recent happenings surrounding her book. From winning the $15,000 PEN/Faulkner Fiction Award in April to her book being selected for Oprah’s Book Club, Mbue’s book has received wide acclaim. Described by the Washington Post as the one novel Donald Trump should read, Behold the Dreamers has also been described as having arrived just at the right time.
In an interview with Oprah, Mbue replied to Oprah’s question of how she knew she had a novel in her, “I never thought about writing but I loved to read. I always loved literature, I loved books. So when I read Toni Morrison’s Songs of Solomon I started writing. I found about her book in 2002 when I was 21 years old in Falls Church, Virginia. I went to the library and there was a special shelf that said Oprah Book Club picked but I’d never read any of the Oprah Book Club books. So I picked Songs of Solomon and was blown away and I started writing.”
