Zambian · b. 1980
Namwali Serpell's "The Old Drift" (2019) won the Arthur C. Clarke Award—a debut novel spanning a century of Zambian history through three families whose fates intertwine. Serpell was born in Zambia and raised in Baltimore; she teaches at Harvard. Her novel mixes family saga with science fiction, moving from colonial times through independence to a near-future of drones and ecological crisis. "The Furrows" (2022) continued her exploration of grief and imagination.