AWURA AMA BARNIE-DUAH

Assistant to BRETTNE BLOOM & ELISABETH WEED

Awura Ama Barnie-Duah joined The Book Group in 2024, assisting both Brettne Bloom and Elisabeth Weed. Before joining the team, Awura Ama worked in Simon & Schuster’s Associates Program and gained valuable experience through internships at Writers House Literary Agency, Melville House Publishing, and HG Literary Agency. Most recently, she worked as a part-time office assistant at Stuart Krichevsky Literary Agency and as a bookseller at both the Strand Book Store in Manhattan and The Center for Fiction in Brooklyn. She also holds both a BA and MA in English, with double minors in Africana Studies and Creative Writing, from St. John’s University in Queens. She’s a proud Bronx native, but now resides in Brooklyn, NY.

A few books I loved reading in my free time... Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, There There by Tommy Orange, If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin, Tomorrow I Become A Woman by Aiwanose Odafen, The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson, Blood Child by Octavia E. Butler, Rest Is Resistance by Tricia Hersey, Black Joy by Tracey Michae'l Lewis-Giggetts, Sad Happens by Brandon Stosuy (ed.), In Memoriam by Alice Winn, The Insomniacs by Marit Weisenberg, and Keya Das's Second Act by Sophan Deb.