Double Men

A short story by Namwali Serpell from the collection Reader, I Married Him: Stories inspired by Jane Eyre.

In ‘Double Men’, a secret liaison during a Zambian bonding ceremony has repercussions for two old female friends.

Edited by Tracy Chevalier, the full collection, Reader I Married Him, brings together some of the finest and most creative voices in fiction today, to celebrate and salute the strength and lasting relevance of Charlotte Brontë’s game-changing novel and its beloved narrator.

Reviews

Praise for the full collection, READER, I MARRIED HIM:

‘A terrific set of stories by some of our leading novelists, each of whom engages with a chosen aspect of Jane Eyre’ THE NEW STATESMAN

‘A clever idea well-executed; a treat for fans of short fiction and for Brontë's many ardent fans’ KIRKUS REVIEWS

‘Exemplary…written by some of today's best female writers’ THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE

‘These pieces create a beguiling picture of women and men and desire, in which everyone is searching, like Jane, for happiness and wondering whether marriage is really an answer. The book acts as a prism spreading all kinds of literary and historical refractions, and it’s a reminder that Charlotte Brontë, too, has many sides’ GLOBE AND MAIL

About the author

Namwali Serpell was born in Zambia in 1980 and is associate professor of English at UC Berkeley. Her work has
appeared in Tin House, n + 1, McSweeney’s, The Believer, the
San Francisco Chronicle and the Guardian. She received
a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award; was selected as one of the Africa 39, a Hay Festival Project to identify the
39 best African writers under 40; appeared in The Best
American Short Stories 2009; was shortlisted for the Caine
Prize for African Writing in 2010, and won the Caine Prize
in 2015. On reading Jane Eyre, she says: “I first read it in
one long, fevered sitting that took me through the night to a
grey, rainy morning. It was 1995 and I was back in Zambia
for a year of secondary school. Perhaps that’s why my story
commingles these two versions of home: my country and the
wild landscape of letters into which I so often escape. Jane
has always seemed my spiritual double.”