What inspiration can a fiction writer draw from working in a shopping mall?

Nana Kwame Ajebrenia joins us to talk about his debut short story collection, Friday Black.

In what ways have we abandoned the principles of the founders of this country?

Historian Joseph Alice will be here to talk about his latest book, American Dialogue,

The Founders and Us.

Alexander Alter will give us an update from the publishing world, plus our critics

Dwight Garner, Parth Sacle and Jennifer Salai will join us to talk about the latest

illiterary criticism.

This is the Book Review Podcast from the New York Times.

I'm Pamela Paul.

Nana Kwame Ajebrenia joins us now from Syracuse, where he is based,

but in the middle of a book tour for his debut short story collection, Friday Black.

Nana, thanks for being here.

Thank you so much for having me.

I really do appreciate it.

Tell us about the genesis of this collection.

When did you start writing these stories?

What time period do they cover?

So the oldest stories in this book are about six years old now, five, six years old.

I was just getting ready to be out of college.

I was sort of coming to space where I was admitting I wanted to be a writer.

I didn't really share what that meant or not really confident that I could claim something

...