Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author portrait

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

NANA KWAME ADJEI-BRENYAH is the New York Times-bestselling author of Friday Black. His work has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Esquire, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. He was a National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” honoree, the winner of the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and the Saroyan Prize, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Award for Best First Book, along with many other honors. Raised in Spring Valley, New York, he now lives in the Bronx.
Chain Gang All Stars

Building a Book: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah Goes In-Depth on Writing His Novel CHAIN-GANG ALL-STARS

Books

Chain Gang All Stars

Media

Building a Book: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah Goes In-Depth on Writing His Novel CHAIN-GANG ALL-STARS

What Students Will Be Reading: Campus Common Reading Roundup, 2026–27

With the fall semester in full swing, colleges and universities across the country have announced their Common Reading books for the 2026–27 academic year. We’ve compiled a list of over 250 programs and their title selections, detailed below. We will continue to update this listing to provide the most comprehensive record of programs available anywhere

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2027 Catalog for First-Year & Common Reading

We are delighted to present our new First-Year & Common Reading Catalog for 2027! From award-winning fiction, poetry, memoir, and biography to new books about the environment, current events, history, public health, science, social justice, student success, and technology, the titles presented in our common reading catalog will have students not only eagerly flipping through

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Videos from the 2026 First-Year Experience® Conference are now available

We’re pleased to share videos from the 2026 First-Year Experience® Conference. Whether you weren’t able to join us at the conference or would simply like to hear the talks again, please take a moment to view the clips below.   Penguin Random House Author Breakfast Monday, February 17th, 7:15 – 8:45 am PST   This

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FROM THE PAGE: An excerpt from Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s Chain Gang All Stars

Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence In Chain Gang All Stars, two top women gladiators fight for their freedom within a depraved private prison system not so far-removed from America’s own.   The Freeing of Melancholia Bishop She felt their eyes, all those executioners. “Welcome, young lady,” said Micky Wright, the premier announcer

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