The Center for Fiction welcomed Mateo Askaripour, bestselling author of Black Buck, to celebrate his latest work This Great Hemisphere. The novel is an inventive work of speculative fiction that follows Sweetmint, a woman in the Northwestern Hemisphere who is made a second-class citizen by her birth. After her brother goes missing, she learns that he is the main suspect in the murder of a high-ranking political official. With the next election in the hemisphere days away, Sweetmint starts off on a dangerous manhunt to try to find her beloved brother before it is too late. Named one of the most anticipated titles of 2024 by Book Riot and She Reads, the novel immerses you in a captivating setting as it illuminates dynamics of power and corruption. Askaripour was joined by the New York Times bestselling author of The Other Black Girl, Zakiya Dalila Harris. Harris and Askaripour discussed the novel and its imaginative futuristic world that mirrors our own.
Featured Book
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This Great Hemisphere
By Mateo Askaripour
Published by PENGUIN PUBLISHING GROUP
Despite the odds, Sweetmint, a young invisible woman, has done everything right her entire life—school, university, and now a highly sought-after apprenticeship with the Northwestern Hemisphere’s premier inventor, a non-invisible man belonging to the Dominant Population who is as eccentric as he is enigmatic. But the world she has fought so hard to build after the disappearance of her older brother comes crashing down when authorities claim that not only is he well and alive, he’s also the main suspect in the murder of the Chief Executive of the Northwestern Hemisphere.
A manhunt ensues, and Sweetmint, armed with courage, intellect, and unwavering love for her brother, sets off on a mission to find him before it’s too late. With five days until the hemisphere’s big election, Sweetmint must dodge a relentless law officer who’s determined to maintain order and an ambitious politician with sights set on becoming the next Chief Executive by any means necessary.
With the captivating worldbuilding of N. K. Jemisin’s novels and blazing defiance of Naomi Alderman’s work, This Great Hemisphere is a novel that brilliantly illustrates the degree to which reality can be shaped by non-truths and vicious manipulations, while shining a light on our ability to surprise ourselves when we stop giving in to the narratives others have written for us.
In Conversation
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Mateo Askaripour
Mateo Askaripour
New York Times bestselling author Mateo Askaripour wants people to feel seen. His first novel, Black Buck, takes on racism in corporate America with humor and wit. Askaripour was chosen as one of Entertainment Weekly’s “10 rising stars to make waves,” and Black Buck was a Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick. Most recently, he was named as a recipient of the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” prize. This Great Hemisphere is his second novel. He lives in Brooklyn. Follow him on Instagram and Twitter at @AskMateo.
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Zakiya Dalila Harris
Zakiya Dalila Harris
Zakiya Dalila Harris is the author of The Other Black Girl, which was an instant New York Times bestseller and is now a critically acclaimed Hulu Original Series. Her essays and book reviews have appeared in Cosmopolitan, the Guardian, the New York Times, the Rumpus, and elsewhere. She lives in Brooklyn.
Photo Credit: MARK ELZEY
