Carla Namwali Serpell (born 1980) is a Zambian writer who teaches in the United States. She was also educated in the US, moving there with her family when she was nine. In April 2014 she was named on the Hay Festival's Africa39 list of 39 Sub-Saharan African writers aged under 40 with the potential and talent to define trends in African literature. Her short story "The Sack" won the 2015 Caine Prize for African fiction in English. In 2020, Serpell won the Belles-lettres category Grand Prix of Literary Associations 2019 for her novel The Old Drift.