Editor’s note: “Who is Syracuse?” is a series that runs in The Daily Orange every spring. It highlights individuals who embody the spirit of Syracuse. Members of the community were encouraged to nominate people they thought fit this description. This series explores their stories.

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n one of the creative writing classes Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah teaches, he takes attendance with a question. In the past, he has started the class by asking students: What do you love about yourself? What are you proudest of? What is something you want to do but haven’t?

“It’s important for the vibe to be a certain kind of way. And sometimes that vibe is actually the antithesis of most academic classrooms,” Adjei-Brenyah said. “People have to be very comfortable. They have to be willing to be sort of vulnerable.”

Adjei-Brenyah, a graduate of Syracuse University’s MFA in creative writing, wrote a short story collection called “Friday Black,” which found swift critical success after its publication in October 2018. It won him the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award. Adjei-Brenyah also appeared on “Late Night with Seth Meyers” in December.

He said that people regarded him differently after appearing on Meyers’ show.

“That’s a certain type of validation that I think the people who are engaged with the book or as a culture can understand,” he said.

The stories in “Friday Black” examine “how slow violence in its many forms can be. How attractive it can be,” Adjei-Brenyah said. The collection is often described as addressing societal issues like racism, consumerism and violence in a surreal setting. In the story “Zimmer Land,” people pay to virtually kill black men and Muslims.

After earning his master’s degree in 2016, Adjei-Brenyah took a one-year fellowship at Colgate University. He returned to SU the following year and now teaches creative writing courses and workshops.

While an undergraduate at the State University of New York at Albany, Adjei-Brenyah found influences in Grace Paley, James Baldwin and Herman Melville. Adjei-Brenyah applied to the MFA program at SU because another favorite writer, George Saunders, was a member of its faculty.
 

Adjei-Brenyah recalled his excitement when Saunders’ short story collection, “Tenth of December” came out in 2013.

“I remember only having money to go buy a textbook for class,” Adjei-Brenyah said. “I ended up buying ‘Tenth of December’ and not my school textbook. I felt good about that.”

At a SUNY Albany event, Adjei-Brenyah asked Saunders to sign his copy of “Tenth of December” and told him that he had applied to SU’s MFA program. Saunders warned him about the low acceptance rate.

It was the beginning, he said, of a well-cited mentorship.

“He really helped me see my work in different ways, really helped me feel comfortable being the type of writer I am,” Adjei-Brenyah said.

Saunders said in an email to The Daily Orange that both he and Adjei-Brenyah share “an artistic hunger.”

“That desire just has always gnawed at me and has been essential to who I am,” Saunders said. “I could see that same trait in him — he wanted so badly for his work to be unique and beautiful.”

That shared artistry made Saunders feel like he could “take the wild swings” giving feedback to Adjei-Brenyah, who would rise to the occasion in his revisions. Adjei-Brenyah never backed down or showed anything, but “wild artistic courage,” Saunders said.

Sarah Harwell, the associate director of the creative writing MFA program, said Adjei-Brenyah showed enthusiasm and a welcoming attitude toward other students in the program.

“He makes friends wherever he goes because he can listen to people and he’s interested in them,” Harwell said. “I think that’s what makes him a good writer, as well.”

Saunders said Adjei-Brenyah was a “terrific friend” to the other students and that, in a high-level program like SU’s, that shows a wonderful confidence.

Christopher Kennedy, the director of SU’s MFA program, taught Adjei-Brenyah in classes that focused on literary craft. Kennedy said he mostly teaches poetry, and that Adjei-Brenyah responded well to the material he taught.

“I saw him taking the risk of trying to do stuff that was out of his comfort zone and I think it really helped him develop the unique style he has now,” Kennedy said.

His friendship with Adjei-Brenyah was also based on interest outside the classroom, Kennedy said.

“Once we found out we were both basketball junkies, we were able to have conversations with each other immediately,” he said.

The MFA program at SU has graduated several celebrated writers, including Michael Burkard and Mary Karr, among others. Harwell said it was good to know the work was recognized and that people are reading it, since it’s an important and timely story.

Last March, Adjei-Brenyah accepted the 2019 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award. The 2019 award committee wrote that the stories “stick with you, probing the American psyche and persistently asking more of us.”

“I think a lot of the stories are interested in the sort of sly, innate ways systems or institutions can trick us into being inhumane to each other,” Adjei-Brenyah said.

Adjei-Brenyah said he didn’t know he was going to win ahead of time. He didn’t prepare a speech. The pressure of awards usually takes the fun out of them quickly, Adjei-Brenyah said, but that wasn’t the case this time.

“To win that kind of award specifically, to me was really important,” he said. “I like work that’s doing something.”

Photos by Kai Nguyen | Staff Photographer

Published on April 16, 2019 at 11:08 pm

Contact Mary: mdcatalf@syr.edu | @mrycatalfamo