JJ Amaworo Wilson is a German-born, British-educated debut novelist. Based in the U.S., he has lived in 9 countries and visited 60. He is a prizewinning author of over 20 books about language and language learning. Damnificados is his first major fiction work. His short fiction has been published by Penguin, Johns Hopkins University Press, and myriad literary magazines in England and the U.S.
Damnificados won the 2017 Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards winner for debut fiction!
Damnificados won the 2017 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award in the Multicultural Fiction category!
JJ Amaworo Wilson has been awarded the 2016 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award in the fiction category for his novel Damnificados. The awards list is comprised of published authors from the two neighboring states recognized in several categories ranging from Anthropology to Young Readers.
Nazaré
SKU: 9781629639086
Author: JJ Amaworo Wilson
Series: PM Press/Spectacular Fiction
ISBN: 9781629639086/9781629639208
Published: 9/14/2021
Format: Paperback
Size: 5×8
Pages: 320
Subjects: Fiction / Dystopian / Magical Realism
Praise
“I celebrate this novel for its sea village textures, its power-driven tides of story and characters, shaped and painted as if they were figures rising up from the buried truths of an ancient ocean and its peoples. The materials are multilayered with whale skin, song names, the breath of brujas and the whispers of old men and widowed women. There is tenderness, transcendence and the voyages into the unknown we all seek to enter and be reborn. Amaworo Wilson’s dexterity, abundant materials, culture lens, and visual genius give us a rare, ground-shaking novel, a tidal wave of prizes.”
—Juan Felipe Herrera, United States Poet Laureate
“Nazaré grabs the reader from the first page and never lets go, bringing us into so many rich and colorful worlds. This brilliant novel will earn JJ Amaworo Wilson a spotlight on the main stage of world fiction.”
—Daniel Chacón, American Book Award winner, author of Kafka in a Skirt
“JJ Amaworo Wilson is a word magician, and Nazaré is an extraordinary and inventive allegory for our time, a kaleidoscopic adventure of epic proportions. Its mighty and potent message is simple and true: evil will ever be defeated by the goodness of great souls.”
—Denise Chávez, American Book Award winner, author of The King and Queen of Comezón and Loving Pedro Infante
“Nazaré brings to mind the work of Jorge Amado, Louis de Bernieres, Alejo Carpentier, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. But it’s no imitation. JJ Amaworo Wilson is a topnotch novelist in his own right. I fell in love with his troubled city, its eclectic characters with their unlikely alliances, comedic turns, bursts of magic, and with the depth and nuance of a community rising against tyranny and corruption.”
—David Anthony Durham, author of The Risen
“Steeped in awe and everyday mysticism, Nazaré captured me with its stunning opening scene, and never let go. It is a story both timeless and urgent, and every passage is alight with humor, ingenuity, and surprise. A singular voice in contemporary fiction, JJ Amaworo Wilson offers readers both an energizing escape and a look at how to live with courage and clarity through absurd times.”
—Adrienne Celt, author of End of the World House and Invitation to a Bonfire
“An epic of everywhere. Of autocrats and inequality, of profiteers and their police. But also of revenge and solidarity, of rebels and the righting of wrongs, and of Kin das Ondas—Kin of the Waves—a beach-comber and street urchin turned revolutionary. A luminous novel of the margins and the lumpen and their due.”
—Raymond Craib, author of Adventure Capitalism
“Like the wave that gives it its title, JJ Amaworo Wilson’s Nazaré is a high-water mark for fabulist fiction, an exceptional novel that showcases the superior gifts of a writer who only gets better with each new work.”
—Elizabeth Hand, author of Generation Loss and Curious Toys
Damnificados
SKU: 9781629631172
Author: JJ Amaworo Wilson
Publisher: PM Press/Spectacular Fiction
ISBN: 9781629631172
Published: 1/2016
Format: Paperback, ePub, PDF, mobi
Size: 8 x 5
Page count: 288
Subjects: Fiction/Fiction-Dystopia
Praise
“Should be read by every politician and rich bastard and then force-fed to them—literally, page by page.”
—Jimmy Santiago Baca, author of A Place to Stand
“Two-headed beasts, biblical floods, dragonflies to the
rescue—magical realism threads through this authentic and compelling
struggle of men and women—the damnificados—to make a home for themselves
against all odds. Into this modern, urban, politically familiar
landscape of the ‘have-nots’ versus the ‘haves,’ Amaworo Wilson
introduces archetypes of hope and redemption that are also deeply
familiar—true love, vision quests, the hero’s journey, even the remote
possibility of a happy ending. These characters, this place, this dream
will stay with you long after you’ve put this book down.”
—Sharman Apt Russell, author of Hunger
“Only a rare and special talent can take contemporary realities—sad,
joyful, infuriating, inspiring—and spin them into legend. In a narrative
rich in danger, adventure, humor, romance, and risk, JJ Amaworo Wilson
raises essential questions without succumbing to earnestness or
didacticism.”
—Diane Lefer, author of Confessions of a Carnivore
Book Events
december, 2024
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Reviews
- A Revolutionary Wave: Review of JJ Amaworo Wilson’s Nazaré
- Che Guevara in Black and White
- Nazare on World Literature Today
- Nazare on Svetlana’s Reads and Views
- Author JJ Amaworo Wilson Discusses His New Novel Nazare
- Nazaré in the Washington Independent
- Nazaré on Veterans Today
- Nazaré— A Review
- “This is a novel about a magical realist revolution in the Village With No Name …”
- Starred Review of Nazaré in Foreword
Interviews
- JJ Wilson on Radio Que Tal
- Q&A with JJ Amaworo Wilson
- Words on a Wire: JJ Amaworo Wilson
- JJ Amaworo Wilson on Blog Talk Radio
- JJ Amaworo Wilson Speaking at the Southwest Writers on A Day with the Damned
- “I don’t give refunds.” Eye-popping interviews with writers: PEN America Journal 2017
Mentions
Blog
- “Not everything that is faced can be changed” – Jimmy Baldwin at 100
- Nazaré just won the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award for Literary Fiction
- A Revolutionary Wave: Review of JJ Amaworo Wilson’s Nazaré
- Nazare Wins Foreword INDIES Editor’s Choice Award for Fiction
- Otero Arts, Inc. Reading Series: JJ Amaworo Wilson
- Che Guevara in Black and White
- Nazare on World Literature Today
- Nazare on Svetlana’s Reads and Views
- Author JJ Amaworo Wilson Discusses His New Novel Nazare
- Nazaré in the Washington Independent