Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is an American speculative fiction author who wrote the short-story collection Friday Black (2018) and the novel Chain-Gang All-Stars (2023). He was named a "5 under 35 Honoree" by the National Book Foundation in 2018 and won the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award in 2019. Chain-Gang All-Stars was shortlisted for the 2023 National Book Award for Fiction and named one of the "10 Best Books of 2023" by The New York Times. In 2025, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Early life and education Adjei-Brenyah was born in Queens, New York City, but grew up in Spring Valley, New York. Both of his parents are from Ghana. His father was a defense attorney and his mother was a kindergarten teacher. Adjei-Brenyah started writing from a young age and wrote for his high school's literature magazine.
Adjei-Brenyah went to the University at Albany, SUNY, for his undergraduate degree, where he learned from Lynne Tillman. He attended the graduate writing program at Syracuse University with the goal to study with George Saunders in the creative writing program. Saunders later became his thesis adviser and mentor. Adjei-Brenyah went on to teach in the same program.
After college, Adjei-Brenyah became interested in prison abolition and worked at the Rockland Coalition to End the New Jim Crow.
Writing career Adjei-Brenyah's published works are set in near-future dystopias. They often explore the topics of exploitation, capitalism, and the societal acceptance of violence. His non-fiction writing includes a foreword to How a Game Lives, a collection of critical essays by Jacob Geller.King, Andrew. "After Jacob Geller's Book, More YouTube Creators Should Release Their Work In Physical Form", The Gamer, 15 March 2024. Retrieved 1 June 2024How a Game Lives, Lost in Cult. Retrieved 2 June 2024.
In 2026, Adjei-Brenyah became the William H.P. Jenks Chair in Contemporary Letters at the College of the Holy Cross.
Friday Black
Adjei-Brenyah's debut book is a collection of 12 satirical short stories exploring many topics, including racism in modern-day America, consumerism, school shootings, and generational violence. Vulture described the book as "an irreverent, genre-bending approach to ripped-from-the-headlines subject matter".
Chain-Gang All-Stars
Adjei-Brenyah's first novel is set in a dystopian America where imprisoned people have the choice to leave prison by joining a gladiatorial system called the "CAPE" or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment program where they take part in televised duels to the death as part of alliances called Chain Gangs. If they manage to survive three years of battles, then they are freed. The book has a large cast and is written from the perspective of multiple people participating in the program, as well as activists fighting against it, fans, and the people running it.
The book is a fictional novel but features many footnotes citing current laws and factual statistics about the incarceration system in the United States.
Chain-Gang All-Stars started as a short story for inclusion in Friday Black but became too long. Adjei-Brenyah has said that he developed it into a novel because he felt he needed to spend more time exploring the main character, Loretta Thurwar.
Chain-Gang All-Stars was shortlisted for the 2023 National Book Award for Fiction. Kirkus Reviews gave it a starred review and chose the novel as one of the best books of 2023. The New York Times named it one of the 10 best books of 2023.
Awards and nominations +Awards for Adjei-Brenyah's writingYearWorkAwardResultResultRef.2018Friday BlackNational Book Critics Circle Award John Leonard Prize National Book Foundation 5 Under 352019Aspen Words Literary Prize —Dylan Thomas Prize —PEN/Jean Stein Book Award —2020William Saroyan International Prize for Writing —2023 Chain-Gang All-Stars Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award Fiction Center for Fiction First Novel Prize — Goodreads Choice Awards Science Fiction Debut Gordon Burn Prize — National Book Award Fiction Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize — 2024 Alex Awards — Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence Fiction Arthur C. Clarke Award — Aspen Words Literary Prize — Chautauqua Prize — International Dublin Literary Award — Locus Award First Novel Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award — Publishing Triangle Awards Ferro-Grumley Award Young Lions Fiction Award —
Publications
References