Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

(USA, 1991) is seen as an important new voice in American literature: that of new black surrealism. His debut  collection Friday Black won many prizes and is a raw, surrealist and partly satirical book with twelve short stories that denounce the excesses of racism and today's consumer society. Five unarmed black teenagers are murdered in cold blood by a white family man who feels "threatened" by them - and who is acquitted; an amusement park employee does his makeup for yet another day as scapegoat and target of the racist fantasies of the mostly white visitors; and a salesperson in a shopping mall prepares for the Black Friday sales and the expected hordes of zombie-like, violent bargain hunters. Adjei-Brenyah's stories are extreme and disturbing, but at the same time sketch a nearly-here future and show how people desperately want to belong to a society, but that this society is not ready to accept just anyone. A Dutch translation with the same title was published in 2019.