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Virtual Reading and Conversation with Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of the novel --Chain Gang All-Stars--

Chain-Gang All-Stars
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

“Like Orwell’s 1984 and Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Adjei-Brenyah’s book presents a dystopian vision so upsetting and illuminating that it should permanently shift our understanding of who we are and what we’re capable of doing…So raw and tragic and primal is Chain-Gang All-Stars that despite its futuristic elements, it has the patina of some timeworn epic…Shockingly intimate and moving.”
—Washington Post

Selected by the New York Times as one of the best ten books of 2023: www.nytimes.com/2023/11/28/books/review/best-books-2023.html

The New York Times beststelling and awarded author Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah reads from his debut novel and is conversation with KU students.

Time and place: UA - 30, Dec 20, 2023, 6:00 pm CET

Via Zoom: https://kuei.zoom.us/j/68106271049?pwd=TGdITDRWNFNsakFqMUlnRjhkN1g4UT09

About the novel:

Loretta Thurwar and Hamara “Hurricane Staxxx” Stacker are the stars of Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly-popular, highly-controversial, profit-raising program in America’s increasingly dominant private prison industry. It’s the return of the gladiators and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom. In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death-matches for packed arenas with righteous protestors at the gates. Thurwar and Staxxx, both teammates and lovers, are the fan favorites. And if all goes well, Thurwar will be free in just a few matches, a fact she carries as heavily as her lethal hammer. As she prepares to leave her fellow Links, she considers how she might help preserve their humanity, in defiance of these so-called games, but CAPE’s corporate owners will stop at nothing to protect their status quo and the obstacles they lay in Thurwar’s path have devastating consequences. Moving from the Links in the field to the protestors to the CAPE employees and beyond, Chain-Gang All-Stars is a kaleidoscopic, excoriating look at the American prison system’s unholy alliance of systemic racism, unchecked capitalism, and mass incarceration, and a clear-eyed reckoning with what freedom in this country really means from a “new and necessary American voice” (Tommy Orange, The New York Times Book Review).

About the author:

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is the author of the bestselling short story collection Friday Black and the novel Chain-Gang All-Stars. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous publications, including Guernica, Compose: A Journal of Simply Good Writing, Printer’s Row, Gravel, and The Breakwater Review, where he was selected by ZZ Packer as the winner of the 2nd Annual Breakwater Review Fiction Contest. He is from Spring Valley, New York. He graduated from SUNY Albany and went on to receive his MFA from Syracuse University.

 

Virtual Reading and Conversation with Oscar Hokeah (Cherokee/Kiowa), author of the award winning novel --Calling for a Blanket Dance--

Oscar Hokeah

Cherokee/Kiowa author Oscar Hokeah reads from his award winning debut novel and is in conversation with KU students.

Time and place: UA - 30, Nov 22, 2023, 6:00 pm

Via Zoom: kuei.zoom.us/j/68415569345

About the novel:

Oscar Hokeah’s electric debut takes us into the life of Ever Geimausaddle, whose family—part Mexican, part Native American—is determined to hold onto their community despite obstacles everywhere they turn. Ever’s father is injured at the hands of corrupt police on the border when he goes to visit family in Mexico, while his mother struggles both to keep her job and care for her husband. And young Ever is lost and angry at all that he doesn’t understand, at this world that seems to undermine his sense of safety. Ever’s relatives all have ideas about who he is and who he should be. His Cherokee grandmother, knowing the importance of proximity, urges the family to move across Oklahoma to be near her, while his grandfather, watching their traditions slip away, tries to reunite Ever with his heritage through traditional gourd dances. Through it all, every relative wants the same: to remind Ever of the rich and supportive communities that surround him, there to hold him tight, and for Ever to learn to take the strength given to him to save not only himself but also the next generation.

How will this young man visualize a place for himself when the world hasn’t made room for him to start with? Honest, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting, Calling for a Blanket Dance is the story of how Ever Geimausaddle finds his way home.

Winner of the PEN America/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel

“A profound reflection on the intergenerational nature of cultural trauma… Hokeah’s characters exist at the intersection of Kiowa, Cherokee and Mexican identity, which provides a vital exploration of indigeneity in contemporary American letters.”
—The New York Times Book Review

About the author:

Oscar Hokeah is a citizen of Cherokee Nation and the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma from his mother's side and has Mexican heritage through his father. He holds an MA in English with a concentration in Native American Literature from the University of Oklahoma, as well as a BFA in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA), with a minor in Indigenous Liberal Studies. He is a recipient of the Truman Capote Scholarship Award through IAIA and is also a winner of the Native Writer Award through the Taos Summer Writers Conference. His short stories have been published in South Dakota Review, American Short Fiction, Yellow Medicine Review, Surreal South, and Red Ink Magazine. He works with Indian Child Welfare in Tahlequah.

Weekly Movie Nights

Weekly Movie Nights

4 films on Crime and American Media, Wednesday 6 pm (Nov 8/15/22/29)

organized by the Fachgruppe Anglistik/Amerikanistik

Mid-term Conference "Here, There, and Somewhere in Between: Placing, Practicing, Configuring"

For more information about the mid-term conference of the DFG-Graduiertenkolleg and the conference program visit the website of the research group or here.

New Exchange Agreement with Weber State University, Ogden, UT, USA

Downtown Ogden

Website Weber State University: https://www.weber.edu

Department of English Language and Literature: https://www.weber.edu/English

For more information, please contact the KU International Office: student.exchange(at)ku.de or outgoing(at)ku.de