When Zakiya Dalila Harris left her job as an assistant editor at Penguin Random House to devote more time to her debut novel, she never envisioned that her book would become the highly sought-after object of a fourteen-bidder auction, culminating in a splashy seven figure deal and a Hulu series adaptation. “When I was writing the novel, I never thought this would happen,” Harris told Esquire. “I just wanted to finish a book.”The Other Black Girl made waves not just for the enormity of the deal, but for its promise to put book publishing on notice. The novel trains an unflinching spotlight on the racism and microaggressions that remain a staple of this overwhelmingly white industry; it also lambasts the hollow-hearted diversity town halls put on by publishing corporations, asking how the publishing world might dig deeper to make truly meaningful change. Fifteen months after the auction, The Other Black Girl is now the summer’s buzziest debut. Get Out meets The Devil Wears Prada in this blistering literary thriller about Nella, a hardworking and ambitious editorial assistant who long has been the lone Black employee at Wagner Books. The arrival of Hazel, another Black editorial assistant, seems like the answer to Nella’s prayers—but Hazel isn’t the ally she seems to be. When Nella begins to receive threatening anonymous notes saying “LEAVE WAGNER NOW,” she immediately suspects Hazel. The truth is far more sinister, exposing Nella to a dangerous conspiracy that alters her worldview forever. Nella and Hazel’s fraught relationship opens… Click below to read the full story from Esquire
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Zakiya Dalila Harris Is Putting Corporate America on Blast
