Asali Solomon’sfirst novel, Disgruntled, was named a best book of the year by the San Francisco Chronicle and The Denver Post. Her debut story collection, Get Down, earned her a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award and the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” honor, and was a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. Her work has appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine, Vibe, Essence, The Paris Review Daily, McSweeney’s, and several anthologies, and on NPR. Solomon teaches fiction writing and literature of the African diaspora at Haverford College. She was born and raised in Philadelphia, where she lives with her husband and two sons.
Interviews
A Day in the Life: Asali Solomon talks about craft, social media and her new novel, Bookforum, by Porochista Khakpour
Novelist’s ‘Disgruntled’ Heroine is Drawn from Her Own Childhood, Fresh Air with Terry Gross.
Her West Philadelphia Childhood is Stranger Than Fiction,The Philadelphia Inquirer, by Samantha Melamed
The Rumpus Interview with Asali Solomon, by Stephanie Trott
“A Superior Remix of that Divide” Apiary, by Marissa Johnson-Valenzuela
“A Settled Place Within”: A Conversa
Asali Solomon
The Days of Afrekete avg rating — 1, ratings — published — 6 editionsDisgruntled avg rating — 1, ratings — published — 11 editionsThe Best Short Stories The O. Henry Prize Winners
byavg rating — 1, ratings — published — 3 editionsHow We Fight White Supremacy: A Field Guide to Black Resistance
byavg rating — ratings — published — 9 editionsUSA Noir: Best of the Akashic Noir Series
byavg rating — ratings — published — 5 editionsPhiladelphia Noir (Akashic Noir)
byavg rating — ratings — published — 7 editionsGet Down avg rating — ratings — published — 4 editionsWriting for a Change: Boosting Literacy and Learning Through Social Action
byavg rating — 28 ratings — published — 4 editionsGet Down: Stories avg rating — 0 ratings — 2 editionsDisgruntled: A Novel avg rating — 0 ratingsAsali Solomon&#;s Writing Life
Growing up in West Philadelphia, the child of Afrocentric, activist parents, Asali Solomon often felt at odds with the larger world.
That was true as a youngster at the neighborhood school, Henry C. Lea Elementary, where classmates made merry over Christmas while Solomon and her younger sister, Akiba, celebrated the seven principles of Kwanzaa, couldn’t eat pork, and had exotic names. Later, that sense of alienation was compounded when she attended the elite, mostly white, mostly wealthy Baldwin School on the Main Line.
"I think being a child is hard in a way that being an adult is hard," says Solomon from her unadorned third-floor office in Woodside Cottage. "I didn’t have a bad childhood, but I was aware of dangers and difficulties that my parents had no control over. That’s one of the shocking realizations. Even though parents control your world, they don’t control the world."
Solomon, 42, an assistant professor of English and Haverford’s first tenure-track professor in creative writing, draws upon those experiences in her debut novel, Disgruntled, which was published earlier this year to acclaim. It tells the tale of 8-year-old Kenya Cu
Writing (selected)
Fiction
“Delandria.” Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi and Minton Jenny, eds. The Best Short Stories of The O. Henry Stories. New York, Anchor Books,
McSweeney's Quarterly. Issue 55, Spring
“Black Women Academics and Their White Male Partners: A Study in Seamless Contradictions.” Kweli Magazine. December 22,
“Cold Water for Blood Stains.” The Kenyon Review. Winter
“Secret Pool” in USA Noir: The Best of the Akashic Series. Temple, Johnny, ed. Brooklyn, New York: Akashic Books,
Nonfiction
“Live from the Belly of the Beast: In West Philadelphia was the best place in this terrible world,” Philadelphia Magazine, June
“Conversations with Microagressions and the Spirit World.” in Eds. Akiba Solomon and Kenrya Rankin. How We Fight White Supremacy: A Field Guide to Black Resistance. New York: Nation Books, March
“Killing the Donald Trump in Us: How to be Less Like the Man We Elected to Lead Us,” Very Smart Brothas, January 2,
“Asali Solomon Recommends,” Poets & Writers, December 10,
“Difference”, O: the Oprah Magazine.
“Black History,”Paris Review D
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