Taiye Selasi (born 2 November 1979) is a writer and photographer of Nigerian and Ghanaian origin.

Early life and education

Selasi was born in London, England, and raised in Brooklyn, Massachusetts, the elder of twin daughters in a family of physicians. She graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a BA in American Studies from Yale, and earned her MPhil in International Relations from Nuffield College, Oxford.

Taiye means the first twin in her mother's native Yoruba.

Selasi twin sister, Dr. Yetsa Kehinde Tuakli, is a physiatrist in the US. A passionate champion of African paralympians, Tuakli competes in the long jump for Ghana's national team. Selasi's mother, Dr. Juliette Tuakli, is a paediatrician in Ghana. Renowned for her advocacy of children's rights, she sits on the board of United Way. Selasi's father, Dr. Lade Wosornu, is a surgeon in Saudi Arabia. Considered one of Ghana's foremost public intellectuals, he has published numerous volumes of poetry. Selasi's parents split when she was an infant. She met her biological father at the age of 12.

Career

In 2005 The LIP Magazine published "Bye-Bye, Babar (Or: What is an Afropolitan?)", Selasi's seminal text on Afropolitans. The same year she penned a play, which was produced at a small theatre by Dr. Avery Willis, Toni Morrison's niece.

In 2006 Morrison gave Selasi a one-year deadline; she wrote "The Sex Lives of African Girls" to meet it. The story, published by UK literary magazine Granta in 2011, appears in Best American Short Stories 2012.

In 2010 Ann Godoff at Penguin Press bought Selasi's unfinished novel. Ghana Must Go was published in 2013 to much critical acclaim. Selected as one of the 10 Best Books of 2013 by the Wall Street Journal and The Economist, it has been sold in 22 countries as of 2014.

In 2013 Selasi was selected as one of Granta?s 20 Best Young British Writers and in 2014 named to the Hay Festival's Africa39 list of 39 Sub-Saharan African writers under the age of 40 "with the potential and talent to define trends in African literature."

Selasi collaborates frequently with fellow artists. In 2012 she partnered with architect David Adjaye to create the Gwangju River Reading Room, an open-air library erected in 2013 as part of the Gwangju Biennale's Folly II. With director Teddy Goitom, founder of Stocktown, Selasi is Executive Producer of "Afripedia," a documentary series about urban African creatives. With producers Fernando Meirelles and Hank Levine (City of God), Selasi is developing "Exodus," a feature documentary about global migration.

www.ghanaweb.com