Zinzi Clemmons

whose debut novel, What We Lose, will be published in July by Viking.

- Danzy Senna

I HAD the pleasure of reading a section of What We Lose several summers ago, when I was Zinzi Clemmons’s workshop leader at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. I was struck then—as I was later, when I read a whole draft—by the language, which is so spare and poetic, yet cool and crisp. There is not a word out of place, but it somehow feels effortless. The story is quietly devastating. It is a story about death and birth and also about race and identity. The main character is complicated, both African and American, mixed and black, vulnerable and strong. She is grieving and falling in love. She inhabits so many spaces at once. Thandi presents herself, with all of her contradictions, and the reader is swept up into this intimate vision. The work never feels anthropological. It is written from within, and Thandi’s specific world immediately feels universal.

Were there writers—contemporary or classic—whose work specifically inspired you on a line and voice level? Other books you looked to as models of how to use language as you were writing this?