Roxane Gay on Marguerite Duras and Kaveh Akbar on Amos Tutuola.

This article explores the literary influences of contemporary writers Roxane Gay and Kaveh Akbar, focusing on the 20th-century authors Marguerite Duras and Amos Tutuola, respectively. Roxane Gay highlights Duras’s novel *The Lover* for its daring, sensuous language and unapologetic engagement with taboo subjects, emphasizing her risk-taking and unique perspective shaped by her life in Indochina. Kaveh Akbar discusses Tutuola’s *The Palm-Wine Drinkard* as a radically original work rooted in Yoruba oral storytelling, notable for its unconventional English and resistance to colonial literary norms. Both contemporary writers underscore the importance of authenticity and the expression of individual, unprecedented experiences in writing.