Taiye Selasi

Taiye Selasi is a British-American author and filmmaker best known for her bestselling novel and viral TED Talk.

Early life and education

Taiye Selasi was born in London, England, and raised in Brookline, Massachusetts, the elder of twin daughters of Dr. Ladé Wosornu, a Ghanaian surgeon and poet, and Dr. Juliette Tuakli, a Nigerian paediatrician renown for her advocacy work. Selasi graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a BA in American Studies from Yale University, before earning her MPhil in International Relations from University of Oxford.

Career

Author

As an author, Selasi is best known for “Firstborn Immigrant Daughter,” published in The New Yorker's Fiction Issue in 2026, and Ghana Must Go, published by Penguin in 2013. In 2005, while completing her graduate studies at Oxford, Selasi met her mentor, Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison. In 2006 Morrison gave Selasi a one-year deadline. To meet it, Selasi wrote "The Sex Lives of African Girls," published by Granta in 2011 and selected for The Best American Short Stories in 2012. The next year Selasi was named to Granta's once-in-a-decade list of Best Young British Novelists. In 2014 she was chosen for Africa39, as one of “39 exceptional African writers under 40.” In 2013 literary titan Ann Godoff, founder and editor-in-chief of Penguin Press, published Selasi's debut, the New York Times bestseller Ghana Must Go. Selected as one of the 10 Best Books of 2013 by both The Wall Street Journal and The Economist, the novel has been translated into over 20 languages. In 2026 Selasi co-founded Sechat, an international writers retreat for women, named after the Egyptian goddess of writing.

Public Speaker

As an essayist and public speaker, Selasi is best known for coining two terms: Afropolitan and multilocal. In 2005 The LIP Magazine published Selasi's now-seminal essay "Bye-Bye, Babar (Or: What is an Afropolitan?)". The first person ever to publish on the subject, Selasi sparked a global discourse on Afropolitan identity, paving the way for scholars such as Simon Gikandi and Achille Mbembe to develop the term into a widely known ideology. In 2015, in her viral TED Talk, Selasi coined 'multi-local' to describe a second contemporary identity. A local of New York, Lisbon, Rome, and Accra, Selasi argues that human beings "come from" experiences rather than countries; that our experiences are shaped by “Three Rs” (relationships, rituals, restrictions) related to where we live; and that we err in privileging a fiction (the state) over the nuanced reality of lived experience.

Producer

In 2020, when Netflix greenlit her first series, Selasi founded Cocoa Content, a creative production company backed by French-American media investor Jérôme Levy. In collaboration with renown Hollywood producers like Debra Martin Chase, Nicholas Weinstock, and Pauline Fischer (former head of International Films at Netflix), Cocoa Content is developing projects in Italy, Portugal, Ghana, and beyond.

Personal Life

Selasi's given name means first twin in her mother's native Yoruba. Selasi's twin, Dr. Yetsa Tuakli, is a celebrated physiatrist. The first African member of the International Paralympic Committee, Tuakli competed in the long jump for Ghana's national team and now runs Sports Equity Lab at Stanford University.

Works

Novels

Ghana Must Go (2013)

Children's books

Anansi and the Golden Pot (2022)

Short stories

"The Sex Lives of African Girls,” GRANTA (2011) "Driver,” GRANTA (2013) "Aliens of Extraordinary Ability,” TALE OF TWO CITIES (2014) "Brunhilda in Love,” SEX AND DEATH (2021) “Betwixt and Betwin,” GRANTA (2022) "Firstborn Immigrant Daughter,” THE NEW YORKER (2026)

This biography is adapted from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA.

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