Jonathan Escoffery on ‘Under the Ackee Tree’ and Walking Your Own Path

Ursa Short Fiction

Deesha and Dawnie chat with Jonathan Escoffery, author of last week's audio story, "Under the Ackee Tree," from his acclaimed collection and audiobook, If I Survive You. The linked stories follow Trelawny, a second generation Jamaican American, as he struggles through family tensions, cultural and historical loss and reclamation, and exploration of identity.

Escoffery talks about his collection and how it came to be—the process of developing characters, tensions, and narrative threads, as well as constructing a complicated family with conflicting generational perspectives on agency, culture, and legacy.

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Reading List: Authors, Stories, and Books Mentioned

• "Under the Ackee Tree" (Ursa Short Fiction, Season Two, Episode 12)
• If I Survive You (Jonathan Escoffery)
• If I Survive You audiobook (Audible)
• Jesus' Son (Denis Johnson)
• We the Animals (Justin Torres)

About the Author

Jonathan Escoffery is the author of the linked story collection, If I Survive You, a New York Times and Booklist Editor’s Choice, an IndieNext Pick, and a National Bestseller. If I Survive You was longlisted for the National Book Award, the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, the PEN/ Robert W. Bingham Prize For Debut Short Story Collection, the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence, the Aspen Words Literary Prize, and the Story Prize, and was shortlisted for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize. It was named a ‘best’ book by The New Yorker, The New York Times, NPR, Entertainment Weekly, People, TIME, Oprah Daily, GQ, and elsewhere. In 2020, Jonathan received the Paris Review’s Plimpton Prize for Fiction and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. He was a 2021-2023 Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.

More from Deesha Philyaw and Dawnie Walton:

• The Secret Lives of Church Ladies (Deesha Philyaw)
• The Final Revival of Opal & Nev (Dawnie Walton)

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Episode editor: Kelly Araja

Associate producer: Marina Leigh

Producer: Mark Armstrong

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