Namwali Serpell

The novelist, literary critic and short story writer Namwali Serpell was born in Zambia 16 years after her country threw off colonial rule. She is the daughter of a British-born Zambian psychologist, Robert, and a Zambian economist, Namposya Nampanya-Serpell. She and her sisters grew up in the Zambian capital of Lusaka, as well as in Hull, England, and Baltimore, where their parents’ nomadic work took them.