Hawa Jande Golakai

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Hawa Jande Golakai (* 1979 in Frankfurt ) is a Liberian writer.

Life

Hawa Jande Golakai was born in Frankfurt and grew up in Liberia. With the beginning of the Liberian civil war in 1989, her family fled and lived in various African countries such as Togo , Ghana and Zimbabwe . In 2003 Golakai came to Cape Town as a student. She studied molecular and cell biology at the University of Cape Town and graduated in 2005 with a bachelor's degree. In 2008 she obtained a Master of Science degree from the Faculty of Medicine at Stellenbosch University with a paper on indications of natural immunity to tuberculosis . When she was unsatisfied with her work as a clinical immunologist, she began writing part-time. After almost 10 years in South Africa, she moved back to Liberia. She lives in Monrovia with her son .

Golakai's interest in forensics , which triggered her career as a medical professional, also led her to turn to the crime fiction genre as a writer. She is inspired by works by Edgar Allan Poe , Terry Pratchett and Bai T. Moore, among others , while also examining the influence of mystical and fantastic elements. Her first novel The Lazarus Effect was published by Kwela in 2011. It is about the Cape Town-based journalist Vee Johnson, who was traumatized by the Liberian civil war and, guided by her hallucinations, searches for a missing girl. The crime thriller was a surprise success in Africa and was nominated for the Wole Soyinka African fiction Award, University of Johannesburg Debut Book Prize and South Africa's Sunday Times Prize. In 2016 it was reissued by Cassava Republic Press in London. In 2015, a sequel to the character Vee Johnson appeared under the title The Score.

Golakai also published articles in journals and essays, some of which were included in anthologies. The writer Zukiswa Wanner named her among the top five African authors in an article for The Guardian in 2012 . At the 2014 Hay Festival of Literature & Arts, she was selected as one of 39 African authors under the age of 40 whose work was the most promising as part of the Africa39 project. Her text The Score, from a Novel in Progress appeared in the accompanying anthology Africa39: new writing from Africa south of the Sahara by Bloomsbury (2014). Golakai's better-known essays include Fugee , a personal report on the Ebola crisis in Liberia. He appeared in Safe House: Explorations in Creative Nonfiction (2016) and received the Brittle Paper Award in 2017.

2019 it was included in the anthology New Daughters of Africa by Margaret Busby added.

Selected Works

  • The Lazarus effect , Kwela, Cape Town 2011 and Cassava Republic Press, London 2016
  • The Score , Kwela, Cape Town 2015 and Cassava Republic Press, London 2017

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kwela | Our Authors | HJ Golakai. Retrieved October 2, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b Makanfi Kamara: Interview with Hawa Golakai, Author, The Lazarus Effect. (No longer available online.) In: Daily Observer. February 22, 2014, archived from the original ; accessed on October 2, 2019 .
  3. ↑ a b c Emmanuel Akinwotu: Hawa Golakai: the Liberian scientist turned cult crime writer . In: The Guardian . June 9, 2016, ISSN  0261-3077 ( theguardian.com [accessed October 2, 2019]).
  4. ↑ a b Hawa Jande Golakai. Retrieved October 2, 2019 (American English).
  5. ↑ Zukiswa Wanner: Zukiswa Wanner's top five African writers . In: The Guardian . September 6, 2012, ISSN  0261-3077 ( theguardian.com [accessed October 2, 2019]).
  6. ↑ Continental drift: Africa39, an anthology of writing from south of the Sahara, is too good to miss. Retrieved October 2, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Golakai, Hawa Jande
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Golakai, HJ
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Liberian writer
DATE OF BIRTH 1979
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt am Main