Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Story Collections

Nana Kwame Adjei Brenyah is American fiction author best known for his debut novel Friday Black. Kwame schooled at SUNY Albany and the Syracuse University where he received his MFA. Many publications among them the compose, Guernica, and Gravel have received and published his writing. The ZZ Packer selected him for the 2nd Annual breakwater Review Fiction Contest.

Nana Kwame has made numerous contributions to different magazines and publishing houses, but his first book is the Friday Black. Additionally, Broken Pencil Magazine and the Gravel Online have published most of his fictional works.

Friday Black

Set in the near future, Friday Black from the award-winning author takes a look into the issues of violence, absurdities, injustice and extrajudicial incidences that strike a country stinking with racism.

As it kicks off a young man is preparing for an interview, but at the back of his mind, he is unhappy out of the injustices that are being carried out on his fellow Americans. A situation that left the blacks in anger has just taken place pushing a majority of them into the streets where a white man was found innocent after he brutally killed two back children. The collection takes a look at the injustices and pain of living as a black person in a country that is controlled by racism. The author takes a satirical look at the conditions that people of another color other than the whites live through and the effects that the oppression creates.

These stories make one realize the unforgiving effects of letting superiority complex bleed unfairness in almost every sector and the more significant part being the government and the economy. The wrenching chorus of emotions, insistence, and complications created by the author in a fictional world have a lot to offer the present world. Racism is taken as a sports meaning that while others are suffering there is a group that is enjoying and benefiting. Friday Black combines ideas and indignation to deliver themes of injustice and extrajudicial injustices.

Maintaining its objectivity the collection of stories also details the condition of the world such as the elements discrimination, cultural hostilities and materialism are broadly exposed. The twelve stories act as a medium through which issues in a society where diversity creates hatred and more so on one side are discussed. The collection shines a light into these issues as many people choose to turn a blind eye yet the problems still eat deep into the lives of people involved. The stories present a new voice into the residence of America and beyond where the aspects mentioned and brought out are rampant and need immediate attention.

Kwame voices out multiple issues that are never talked about yet have very dire consequences though he does so in a fictional manner. Many of the things that are discussed as stories do have a substantial relationship with actual events. It is very astonishing how the superior race uses their power to please themselves while they oppress the blacks. A lot of brutalities is experienced in this community and worse of when it comes to the children. It is hilarious how young children are tormented and even killed while the perpetrators go unpunished. The level of hatred witnessed in almost every story is beyond and even past the international human rights.

When brutality and oppression go past a certain limit, the oppressed end up taking violence as the best option to defend themselves and fight for their rights. Fighting for their rights the people are forced to turn to unconventional means of solving conflicts which instead of putting the same to an end add to the death toll. Inequity has never been accepted or taken lightly, and the result is ever graveous to the extents of loss of lives.

Courts and the judicial systems are compromised, and though the blacks try hard to voice their cry there is always no answer, and instead, it ends up in more violence. Pain, bitterness, and suffering seem, to take a considerable part of the collection and while the whites try defending their own. An economy that is characterized by inequalities seems to be causing vast amounts of unrests. The blacks are trying to adapt to the changes and the brutalism created, but still, they are pushed to a dark end. However, though the book tries to expose the negative side a lot is left untouched since society seems to be suffering from ignorance and hypocrisy.

Justice has been let down where only the top persons are favored while those on the lower ground, especially with a dark complexion, are made to suffer. The country is in a state where some people are given more privileges than others while there are those who are taken as lesser beings irrespective of their cry for justice. It is funny how civilization is forgotten, and the people embrace a barbaric lifestyle where others are considered lesser persons, yet the only dividing thing is the skin color. Workstations are not left behind as the ‘inferior persons’ are set up in depriving and humiliating conditions while the whites take the better portions.

It is a crazy world as capitalism is exploited at the expense of a few and the oppressor accumulates wealth for themselves. Oppression be it of any kind has never been championed for by any economic policy only that a few try coining them to fit their greed. These are the same issues that the author is tirelessly working to bring out through the collection of stories. Such expressions either on an economic or a political or even judicial level only create unrests. A nation that is imbalanced with poverty levels on the rise is likely to come about as seen in this collection of stories.

The call for freedom against this unfairness is also seen in this book as the oppressed take to demanding for an end of these unfair and tormenting events. The author addresses the issues of capitalism and racial segregation through excellently written and highly original stories. The debut is cutting, refreshing and bizarre with creativity at its best.