Esinam Bediako, a Ghanaian American writer from Detroit, and Itoro Bassey, a Nigerian American writer born in Houston and raised in New England, are both debut, second-generation African-diasporic authors. Bediako’s debut, Blood on the Brain, is forthcoming from Red Hen Press in September, and Bassey’s debut, Faith, was published by Malarkey Books in 2022. Both books navigate the identity-building of young women who are trying to find a place in a world that is far removed from the one they’ve mostly been raised in.