Taiye Selasi

Taiye Selasi studied at Yale University, Nuffield College and University of Oxford. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is fiction literature. Works named in the authority record are Anansi and the Golden Pot and Ghana Must Go. Distinctions recorded are OkayAfrica 100 Women.

• Name — Taiye Selasi • Birth Name — Taiye Tuakli • Birthplace — London, United Kingdom • Occupation — Novelist • Education — Yale University (BA) Nuffield College, Oxford (Master of Philosophy) • Period — 2005–present • Notable Works — Ghana Must Go (2013) • Movement — Realism, Drama • Website — taiyeselasi

Taiye Selasi was born in London, England, and raised in Brookline, Massachusetts, the daughter of Dr. Ladé Wosornu, a Ghanaian surgeon and poet, and Dr. Juliette Tuakli, a Nigerian paediatrician. 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.

As an author, Selasi is best known for Firstborn Immigrant Daughter, published in The New Yorkers 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, 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.

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.

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 producers like Debra Martin Chase, Nicholas Weinstock, and Pauline Fischer, Cocoa Content is developing projects in Italy, Portugal, Ghana, and beyond.

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.

• Ghana Must Go (2013)

• "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)

Taiye Selasi is recorded as having received OkayAfrica 100 Women.