Coming of Age Around the World: A Multicultural Anthology

Following in the footsteps of the highly successful Coming of Age in America, this collection of twenty-four stories from around the world is a wonderful introduction to literature rarely available to American readers. Editors Faith Adiele and Mary Frosch magnificently chart the global quest for identity, and make a strong case for the personal and political importance of sharing our stories as they consider whether coming of age is a Western―or universal―concept.

Featuring an array of voices from every continent, this anthology includes luminaries like Ben Okri and Chang-rae Lee, as well as recent bestsellers Marjane Satrapi and Alexandra Fuller, in addition to a variety of authors renowned abroad but less well known to North American audiences. The diversity extends to form, encompassing fiction and memoir, graphics, lyric prose, and tales in pidgin and patois.

The world presented is complex and current, some inhabitants routinely switching country and language, others trapped by global events that shape us all. Detailed introductions provide historical and cultural context, particularly for Africa and the Muslim world.

Faith Adiele received the PEN Beyond Margins Award for her memoir about coming of age in Thailand, Meeting Faith: The Forest Journals of a Black Buddhist Nun (W.W. Norton). She is also the writer (and subject) of My Journey Home, a PBS documentary about growing up Nigerian/Nordic American. She resides in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she is a professor of creative writing at the University of Pittsburgh.

Mary Frosch is the editor of Coming of Age in America and Coming of Age in the 21st Century and the co-editor of Coming of Age Around the World (all available from The New Press). As a teacher at The Spence School she designed a world literature curriculum and helped implement the multicultural literature program. She divides her time between New York City and Santa Monica, California.