Zinzi Clemmons

Honoree, 2017 5 Under 35

Zinzi Clemmons was raised in Philadelphia by a South African mother and an American father. She is a graduate of Brown and Columbia universities, and her writing has appeared in Zoetrope: All-Story, The Paris Review Daily, Transition, and elsewhere. Learn more >

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What We Lose

What We Lose by Zinzi Clemmons book cover
ISBN 9780735221710
Viking / Penguin Random House

An elegiac distillation, at once intellectual and visceral, of a young woman’s understanding of absence and identity that spans continents and decades, What We Lose heralds the arrival of a virtuosic new voice in fiction. More about this book >

  • HONOREE 5 Under 35 2017 >

    Selected by Angela Flournoy >

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    Full Bio

    Zinzi Clemmons

    Zinzi Clemmons was raised in Philadelphia by a South African mother and an American father. She is a graduate of Brown and Columbia universities, and her writing has appeared in Zoetrope: All-Story, The Paris Review Daily, Transition, and elsewhere. She is a cofounder and former publisher of Apogee Journal and a contributing editor to Literary Hub. She has been in residence at the MacDowell Colony, Bread Loaf, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and Dar al-Ma’mûn in Marrakech, Morocco. Clemmons lives in Los Angeles with her husband.

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