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Originally from Limbe, Cameroon, Imbolo Mbue moved to the U.S. to go to college. She began writing Behold the Dreamers after she lost her job in the financial crisis.

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Debut Novel Takes On The American Dream ... Racism, Recession And All

9:07am August 21, 2016

by NPR Staff

Like the protagonists in her novel, Imbolo Mbue came to the U.S. from Cameroon. She says the recession "laid bare a lot about the way in which the American dream is not that accessible to everybody."

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Hugo Nominee Nnedi Okorafor: 'I Love Stories — And So I Write Them'

10:58pm August 20, 2016

Host Farai Chideya speaks with science-fiction writer and Hugo Award nominee Nnedi Okorafor about diversity in the genre.

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Wisdom From YA Authors On Leaving Home: Veronica Roth

8:41am August 20, 2016

Veronica Roth is the best-selling author of "Divergent." For our "Next Chapter" series, she talks about a relationship that consumed her life and how she finally left it behind.

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In The Midst Of Future Calamity, A Different Kind Of Ark: The London Zoo

8:24am August 20, 2016

by NPR Staff

In Bill Broun's dystopian Night of the Animals, zoo-bound creatures ask the main character to let them out. "It's a kind of fulcrum between the old world and a kind of liberating cataclysm," he says.

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In 'Ghost Talkers,' The Spies Are Actual Spooks

7:00am August 20, 2016

by Jason Sheehan

Mary Robinette Kowal's new book imagines a version of World War I where mediums serve in the British Army, and newly dead soldiers are vital sources of information about what's happening at the front.

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Novelist's 'Disgruntled' Heroine Is Drawn From Her Own Childhood

1:26pm August 19, 2016

Asali Solomon's novel is about a girl growing up in West Philadelphia whose parents were black nationalists. "My parents taught us to revere Africa," she says. Originally broadcast Feb. 5, 2015.

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Amy Schumer Bares Her Soul In 'The Girl With The Lower Back Tattoo'

10:03am August 19, 2016

by NPR Staff

Schumer's new essay collection is revealing, packed with personal diary entries going back to her preteen years — and funny. But she doesn't shy away from difficult topics like her sexual assault.

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Riveting 'Obelisk Gate' Shatters The Stillness

2:48pm August 18, 2016

by Amal El-Mohtar

N.K. Jemisin continues the story of the Stillness — a world constantly rocked by quakes, and the rare, gifted people who can control them — in a second volume even more engrossing than the first.

Eating Yogurt Is Not Enough: Rebalancing The Ecosystem Of 'The Microbes Within Us'

1:28pm August 18, 2016

Ed Yong, author of I Contain Multitudes, says someday we might be able to improve our health by taking probiotics, but "we are still in the very early stages of working out how to do this."

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'The Hike' Turns Traditional Fairy Tales Inside Out

10:31am August 18, 2016

by Jason Sheehan

Drew Magary's new novel is the strange story of average guy Ben, whose business meeting at a old country hotel turns into a bizarre odyssey through the woods, full of giant crickets and talking crabs.