African Literature on the Mews

As part of PEN World Voices Festival 2013 Africa House hosted “African Literature on the Mews” on Friday, May 3rd, 2013.

Event Schedule:

10:00 am – 11:30 am Writers Workshop: “Not by the book: one writer’s answers to questions most writers ask.” By Igoni Barrett,Nigeria 

2:00 pm – 3:00 pm African Musical Workshop “Zimbabwe to Haiti: the Soul of Shona Mbira Music” By Tiga-Jean Baptiste

5:00 pm – 6:30 pm Perspectives from African Writers: “Who’s the main audience of the African writer and what effect does this audience have on African literature?” A panel discussion featuring: Igoni Barrett, Mukoma Wa Ngugi, NoViolet Bulawayo  & Olufemi Terry.

6:30 pm  – 7:30 pm Post Panel Reception, Moderator: Eddie Mandhry Associate Director, NYU Africa House

Speaker Bios:

A. Igoni Barrett

Igoni Barrett is a winner of the 2005 BBC World Service short story competition, the recipient of a Chinua Achebe Center Fellowship, a Norman Mailer Center Fellowship, and a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Residency. He lives in Nigeria.

Mukoma Wa Ngugi

Mukoma Wa Ngugi is an Assistant Professor of English at Cornell University and the author of Nairobi Heat, an anthology of poetry titled Hurling Words at Consciousness, and the forthcoming Finding Sahara.  He was shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2009 and for the Penguin Prize for African Writing in 2010.  He has a Ph.D. in English from UW-Madison and an MA in creative writing from Boston University.

Olufemi Terry

Olufemi Terry has recently written about Bruce Onobrakpeya, Kony2012, and Cape Verde.  His essays and fiction have been published in the American Scholar, Guernica, and Chimurenga and he has been a Writer in Residence at Georgetown and Cove Park, U.K. His short story, Stickfighting Days, won the Caine Prize for African writing in 2010.

NoViolet Bulawayo

NoViolet Bulawayo is the author of We Need New Names, forthcoming in May 2013 from Little, Brown. Her stories have won the 2011 Caine Prize for African Writing and been shortlisted for the J.M. Coetzee –judged 2009 SA PEN Studzinsi Award. NoViolet earned her MFA at Cornell University where she was a recipient of the Truman Capote Fellowship, and most recently, a lecturer of English. She is now a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.

Tiga Jean-Baptiste

Tiga Jean-Baptiste is a multi-talented and accomplished young Haitian musician. Born into a family deeply rooted in traditional Afro-Haitian music, Tiga is continuing his family legacy, while embracing the music of other lands. Tiga began drumming beside his father Bonga, a master of the Haitian drum. He accompanied Bonga throughout the Haitian countryside, learning many different regional drumming styles. While in his early teens, Tiga studied jazz with renowned Haitian jazz saxophonist Thurgot Theodat from whom he quickly learned a circular breathing technique that enhanced his skills on Haitian bamboo, tin horns (called vaksinn koné), and didjeridoo. Within a few short years of picking up the Shona mbira, Tiga exhibited such skill and mastery he caught the attention of Zimbabwe’s greatest experts at the instrument, Thomas Mapfumo and Stella Chiweshe, with whom he performed and trained with respectively. He has already established himself as an illustrious sideman and session musician. To date, Tiga has performed with Grace Jones, Urban Tap, Emeline Michele, John Legend, Jean-Paul Bourelly, Mozayik, and Buyu Ambroise in addition to his core membership in Bonga & the Vodou Drums of Haiti. In 2000, he was invited to Japan with the Tet Kale Orchestra. Tiga is a teaching artist with the non-profit organization Global Kids and has been a featured accompanist with Wyclef Jean, Pat Hall Dance, Urban Tap, and Jean-Leon Destine.

This event was free and open to the public