... walks an impressive tightrope between laugh-out-loud comedy and breathtaking profundity ... Nkweti does not translate the French or Cameroonian phrases peppered throughout the collection, adding to the reading adventure ... Nkweti executes this back and forth between cultures with exquisite skill, remaining just far enough outside each culture to make keen observations, delivering finely observed detail with a wicked sense of humor ... A linguistic pole vaulter, Nkweti bends language like a master. Readers will enjoy her frequent, unique plays on words ... Nkweti hovers at the edge of pop culture, familiar with its highs and lows, as well as its pervasive impact on contemporary life ... It Just Kills You Inside was the one story that I felt struggled to stay within its boundaries. It was well constructed, and like all Nkweti's stories, fiendishly clever, but I couldn't help wondering if this story wanted to grow into a novel ... This is a minor complaint, however, in a collection that is piquant with witticisms and remarkable, innovative prose. Walking on Cowrie Shells is a terrific read, each story different and varied from the one before. Nkweti has proven herself a bright new star. I, for one, cannot wait to read what she writes next.
The pure energy of the words strikes first, the thrumming, soaring, frenetic pace of Nana Nkweti’s expression ... None of these stories end with a miraculous healing. Even where revelations occur, they never erase scars. Nkweti uses genre tropes to subvert our expectations. She employs the zombie story, the fairy tale, and the confessional in order to invert conventions ... The levity of Nkweti’s writing can make even passing descriptions a delight ... Occasionally the writing veers into the overwrought ... But the sheer speed of Nkweti’s expression allows for correction in midair, and her keen descriptive eye provides more pleasures than missteps ... Her inventiveness dazzles.
I finished this story collection and wondered, Is there anything Nana Nkweti can’t do? In her raucous and thoroughly impressive debut, Walking on Cowrie Shells, Nkweti writes across multiple genres including science fiction, young adult literature, literary fiction and suspense, showcasing a host of voices — immigrant and first-generation, elder and Gen Z, human and supernatural, faithful and godless — hailing from the United States and Africa ... Nkweti’s utterly original stories range from laugh-out-loud funny to heartbreaking, and are often both ... Nkweti proffers no easy solutions to the dilemmas her richly layered characters face, and she challenges our presumptions about who the villains and victims are ... This sensitivity, nuance and keen attention to history shine through on every page of the collection ... At turns tender and bold, Nkweti’s tales upend racist stereotypes. But her writing flows in such a beautiful way, and her characters’ complexities are so central, that this myth-busting feels like a byproduct and not a mission. Nkweti’s mission seems to be to have a hell of a lot of fun writing exquisite stories about people and places that matter to her. And lucky us, we get to read them. These are stories to get lost in again and again.
... such an accomplished book that it both makes a promise and fulfills it — a debut so audacious and masterful, it's hard to believe it's her first time at the plate ... The stories in Nkweti's book range widely, bouncing between the realistic and fantastic ... Nkweti has fun with language throughout the book, but that doesn't stop her from being serious when she needs to. It's the kind of high-wire balancing act that's hard for any writer to pull off; that a debut author does so this gracefully is a stunning accomplishment. Anyone who appreciates authentic and original fiction will find something to love here. And that's a promise.
Each of the 10 stories in this collection is a gem ... Jumping genres and creating characters who explode off the page, this impressive debut is a bold splash of language that will outshine anything else you read this summer. From the beautiful textured cover to her regally gorgeous author photo on the back, Nkweti’s first book is sure to win her a massive audience ... Nkweti, who studied at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and teaches English at the University of Alabama, is truly worthy of the term 'creative writer.' Her concoction of languages, vibrant descriptions, utterly honest and hilarious population of yearning humanity, surreal storylines and innocent humor all come together in a wholly original way. The book reminds me of both Zora Neale Hurston and Nora Ephron, her sense of place and purpose so refined yet so sharp and funny. Walking on Cowrie Shells is perfect at 10 stories, but I sure would like more.
... a cluster of 10 dazzling stories that are as diverse as they are vibrant ... Nkweti ensures that no two tales are alike, regardless of their thematic connective tissue ... Even beyond the variety of subject matter, Nkweti displays her virtuosity and elasticity through her prose. With the ease of a master, she shifts between points of view, between American and African slang, and between the straightforward and the avant-garde. Each story offers not only a different subject but also a different approach, a new plan of narrative attack to conquer each emotional landscape. The result is an intense, sweeping and altogether stunning reading experience.
Nkweti makes an auspicious debut with this story collection, whose roving, voracious energy is sure to dazzle readers. Plucking from such genres as mystery, horror, satire, myth, realism, and even graphic novels to spin her tales, Nkweti’s sure hand on her characters never falters, traversing over the lands of Cameroon and America with the aplomb of a writer well into a celebrated career.
... a vivacious collection with sentences that sizzle on the page ...a unique new voice from the first page ... Cameroonian and Black American culture are the fabric from which the stories in this collection are crafted, with anthropological details woven through like sparkling tinsel ... Nkweti’s stories challenge the pathological, dark-continent image that is still far too prevalent in the American media’s representation of African nations, and even those of us who know to critique such a simplistic view still find ourselves internalizing it. The Cameroon of Cowrie Shells—motherland, diaspora—is a lush, complex setting that expands the map of the reader’s known world ... Some of pieces in this collection felt more like character studies than fully developed stories. At times I yearned for a more traditional narrative arc instead of mere glimpses into other lives. One can argue that this is how life is, that other people pass in and out of our spheres without necessarily completing an arc; we see degrees, not the full radius. But fiction—fiction about mermaids and zombies, no less—need not be tethered by reality...Still, Nkweti’s prose is electric enough to overcome any shortcomings the collection may have ... Nkweti’s book is sharp and gorgeous, and we too are left pleasurably stung.
Nana Nkweti offers ten heart-warming and heart-wrenching stories that span genre, time, and species...all with effortless style and detail. Nkweti’s writing style is a mixture of sobering truths and eccentric scenarios spun into a glittering explosions—details are absolutely vivid and metaphors always clever. She takes risks with her writing and lands on her two feet each time ... While Nkweti creates some nuanced characters, her depiction of Black life in America is at times startlingly bad; many of the African Americans portrayed in the story are villains; always seeking a way to prove their worth and identity in a way that seemed inauthentic and ignorant at best. Some of her character names seemed cherry-picked from internet memes and old comedy sketches that capitalized on unfavorable depictions of Black women as welfare queens and Jezebels ... What makes these portrayals stand out even more is how they are juxtaposed with extremely well-written characters that are found throughout the book ... At the end of the day, it matters quite a bit to readers like myself that marginalized voices get a fair shot at a nuanced depiction. While Walking on Cowrie Shells did not fully deliver that, it was vivacious and confident—Nkweti’s steady hand guides us over the sharp cowrie shells of identity, desire, and the pressure cooker of expectations, all with a style and rhythm that is rare to find.
The ten stories...offer tableaus of Blackness that are as varied as they are vivid. From tale to tale, Nkweti’s genres shift as surely as a living body does, limbs never at a single angle for long. The same assortment of stories that renders a realistic portrait of race and romance within New York City’s Black literary scene delves, with the same intrepid narration, into a crime drama’s layered violence and moral contemplation. Though varied, what anchors these stories within one another’s vicinity is a relentless inquisition of human connectivity ... Nkweti’s commitment to sensory imagery traces trauma as it ricochets between generations, cultures, and families, as it glints in gendered violence, racism (as well as its internalized iterations), and neocolonialism ... Many of these stories prove unique even in their formatting ... The prose itself twins the measured, attention-sustaining adventurism of the worlds it births. The text abounds with colorful metaphor, colloquialism, and a linguistic veering to French, pidgin, and Arabic. Ultimately, each life that Nkweti shapes out for us carries the dents and impressions of the other lives it encounters, brandishing a proof of collision that speaks to a fragile, vicious, irrepressible mortality.
Nana Nkweti is unafraid. Unafraid to interlace myth and reality. Unafraid to embrace the polyphony of voices that tell her stories. Unafraid to breathe life into characters of differing ages, careers, and moral compasses. Nkweti’s debut collection, Walking on Cowrie Shells, captures the experiences of the fearless ... With her dazzling, sonically-driven prose and beautiful structural moves, this collection stands out as both a celebration of the African-American experience and a masterclass in storytelling ... Nkweti’s protagonists are are vivacious, have strong convictions, and are always able to reassert their power by the end of their stories ... Nkweti is skilled in building layered and authentic characters in a handful of pages, characters that can experience the full gamut of emotion and experience, and are never tokens of a singular identity. On a craft level, Nkewti is experimental, bold, and masterful. Not only do these stories play with structure, they also play with genre and form, flitting in and out of realism, horror, and even young adult fiction ... Even when Nkweti explores other genres her polished storytelling and structuring remains, and sometimes shines even brighter than the original brilliant ideas ... These stories speak to the multitude of subjects that fascinate Nkweti, and her storytelling expertise. This collection is more than a summer read, it is the beginning of a long and wonderful career.
Nkweti’s beautiful and immersive debut collection challenges hackneyed depictions of a monolithic Africa through an array of dynamic stories that reflect the heterogeneity of Africans and the Cameroonian diaspora ... Whether Nkweti is writing about water goddesses, zombies, or aspiring graphic novelists, she reveals and celebrates the rich inner lives of those who do not fit neatly into social and cultural categories. But the author’s prose shines the brightest; Nkweti’s sentences soar, enthralling the reader through their every twist and turn, and often ending with a wry punch. This is a groundbreaking and vital work.
Explosive prose and imaginative plots ... Nkweti’s stories offer a wonderfully immersive experience: English mingles with French mingles with pidgin mingles with American teen slang mingles with comic and anime lingo and many other specialized languages. Deliciously disorienting at times and always energizing, the style calls to mind code-switching as well as the rich polyvocality of America ... Boisterous and high-spirited debut stories by a talented new writer.
