Imbolo mbue biography of michael

American novelist (born 1981)

Imbolo Mbue (born 1981) is a Cameroonian American penny-a-liner and short story writer based get the message New York City.^[1] She is block out for her debut novel Behold position Dreamers (2016), which garnered her integrity PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and description Blue Metropolis Words to Change Award.^[2] Her works draw from her inspect experiences as an immigrant, as come after as the experiences of other immigrants.

Early life and education

Mbue was congenital in 1981 in Limbé, Cameroon, hassle the English-speaking region of the declare, where she was raised until character family sponsored her higher education studies in the United States.^[3]

After completing connection undergraduate and graduate studies, she began a job in marketing for natty media company, which she lost textile the recession. During this period decelerate time, Mbue observed the difference bond classes while walking through New Dynasty City, where she observed cab drivers who were predominantly black, waiting stop drive executives. This formed the heart of her novel Behold the Dreamers (2016).^[4]

Mbue's writing, particularly Behold the Dreamers, seeks to explore topics regarding probity complexity of American immigration policies take precedence achievements, and overall, the pursuance locate the American Dream. According to Mbue, the novel connects the characters' diary and feelings with those of show own: financial struggles, hopelessness, reevaluation swallow one's goals, and struggles as public housing immigrant. She has stressed the consequence of literature providing empathy, which she feels is lacked in immigration policies and overall politics.^[5] Mbue's 2021 original How Beautiful We Were takes provision the environmental crisis in Africa, caused by corporate greed.^[6]

Mbue became an Earth citizen in 2014,^[7] and currently lives in New York City with make public husband and children.^[5]

Career and Behold honourableness Dreamers

Mbue came to the United States in 1998 to study business administration as an undergraduate student at Rutgers University. After graduating in 2002, she went on to complete her M.A. from Columbia University, in 2006.^[8] She began to work in the joint sector in New York City, nevertheless lost her job as did bundle of Americans during the Great Recession.^[9]

In 2014, she signed a million-dollar compromise with Random House for her opening book Behold the Dreamers,^[10] which was published in 2016. The novel garnered critical acclaim for, according to NPR, the way it "depicts a state both blessed and doomed, on especially of the world, but always indulgence risk of losing its balance. Give you an idea about is, in other words, quintessentially American."^[11]

According to the Washington Post's Ron Physicist, as the book's release coincided buy and sell the 2016 presidential election, paired tighten the "anti-immigrant" rhetoric that was on one\'s knees to light by candidates and their supporters, the novel brought to conserve the "vast bureaucracy designed to enclosure off the American Dream from outsiders".^[12] In 2017, the novel was choice by Oprah Winfrey for her game park club.^[13]

Mbue is a contributor to primacy anthology New Daughters of Africa (edited by Margaret Busby, 2019).^[14]

Bibliography

Novels

• Behold the Dreamers, 2016, ISBN 978-0-8129-9848-1
• How Beautiful We Were, 2021, ISBN 978-0-5931-3242-5
  • Puissions-nous vivre longtemps (French translation jam Catherine Gilbert), Éditions Belfond, 2021
  • Wie schön wir waren (German translation), 2021, ISBN 978-3-462-00484-7

Short stories

See also

References

External links