WHAT BOOK would the youngest Booker prize nominee Leila Mottley take to a desert island?

WHAT BOOK 

. . . are you reading now?

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, which is a dystopian contemplation on the carceral state. 

It’s an incredible feat — he’s created a completely built world that is rooted in reality, but also allows the imagination to expand on the silences and fallacies of a country hell-bent on glamorising the cruel practice of incarceration.

Recently, I read Solito by Javier Zamora, a memoir about his childhood in El Salvador and his journey to California. I adored it. 

He has the ability to capture his child self’s voice, and illustrate such a devastating and beautiful story of humanity, borders and family. I’m still thinking about it and highly recommend everyone reads it.

US author Leila Mottley, who was born in Oakland, California in 2003, was nominated for the Booker prize in 2022 for her novel Nightcrawling, making her the youngest ever nominee 

. . . would you take to a desert island?

I would take The Trees by Percival Everett, because it provides humorous relief, but is also so complicated and layered that I could spend months just reading and re-reading it — and catching new moments and hidden truths every time.

I re-read all of Jesmyn Ward’s books yearly, so I think I would also feel very comforted having those with me.

Sassafrass, Cypress And Indigo by Ntozake Shange was the first book to consume Leila with the art of language 

. . . first gave you the reading bug?

Sassafrass, Cypress And Indigo by Ntozake Shange first made me fall in love with reading in a new way, when I was around 12 or 13. 

I’d been a reader beforehand, but this book was the first one to consume me with the art of language, and from there I found so many other books which are now my favourites.

Before I read this novel, I had already read Nappy Edges, which is Shange’s poetry collection — and that was also an entry into reading poetry books. 

After that, I would go to the library every week and pick out three more collections, read them, and then return them to get more the next week.

. . . left you cold?

Many of the ‘classics’ that are presented to young people in school have been very disappointing, especially ones that are centred on black characters or storylines, such as To Kill A Mockingbird and The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn.

I don’t take a lot of stock in the western literary canon, because so often it limits our understanding of what ‘great American literature’ is by only including books by white authors that fit neatly into a narrow view of the U.S. and what makes literature good.

When there are so many more expansive novels by black authors, including historical ones, it is neglectful to focus instead on white authors’ depictions of blackness.

• Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley is published by Bloomsbury.