On April 20, 2021, we held a virtual reading and conversation with Irenosen Okojie, winner of the 2020 AKO Caine Prize for African Writing. Moderated by Prof. Lahra Smith, Director of African Studies Program.Irenosen Okojie is a Nigerian-British writer. She is the winner of the 2020 AKO Caine Prize For Fiction for her story, “Grace Jones.” Her debut novel Butterfly Fish won a Betty Trask award and was shortlisted for an Edinburgh International First Book Award. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the Observer, the Guardian, the BBC and the Huffington Post amongst other publications. Her short stories have appeared internationally in publications including Salt’s Best British Short Stories 2017, Kwani? and The Year’s Best Weird Fiction. She was named at the London Short Story Festival by Booker Prize winning author Ben Okri OBE as a dynamic writing talent to watch and featured in the Evening Standard Magazine as one of London’s exciting new authors. Her short story collection Speak Gigantular, published by Jacaranda Books was shortlisted for the Edgehill Short Story Prize, the Jhalak Prize, the Saboteur Awards and nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Her collection of stories Nudibranch which includes her AKO Caine Prize winning “Grace Jones” is published by Dialogue Books.Lahra Smith is Director of the African Studies Program at Georgetown University. Smith is a Political Scientist with a particular interest in African politics, migration and refugees, and citizenship and equality. Her book, Making Citizens in Africa: Ethnicity, Gender and National Identity in Ethiopia, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2013. She teaches courses on migration, women and politics and theory and policy in Africa. Music: Quantum Jazz — "Orbiting A Distant Planet" — Provided by Jamendo.

Lannan Center Podcast

A Reading Featuring 2020 Caine Prize Winner Irenosen Okojie

On April 13, 2021 the Lannan Center presented a Crowdcast webinar featuring  Carolyn Forché. Moderated by Penn Szittya of the Lannan Foundation.Carolyn Forché&apos;s first volume of poetry, Gathering the Tribes, winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize, was followed by The Country Between Us, The Angel of History, and Blue Hour. In March, 2020, Penguin Press published her fifth collection of poems, In the Lateness of the World. She is also the author of the memoir What You Have Heard Is True (Penguin Press, 2019), a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the Juan E. Mendez Book Award for Human Rights in Latin America. She has translated Mahmoud Darwish, Claribel Alegria, and Robert Desnos. Her international anthology, Against Forgetting, has been praised by Nelson Mandela as “itself a blow against tyranny, against prejudice, against injustice.” In 1998 in Stockholm, she received the Edita and Ira Morris Hiroshima Foundation for Peace and Culture Award for her human rights advocacy and the preservation of memory and culture. She is one of the first poets to receive the Wyndham Campbell Prize from the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, and recently received a Lannan Award for Poetry. She is a University Professor at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.Penn Szittya is the former Chair of the English Department at Georgetown University, where he specialized in medieval poetics and social practice. He also taught at Emory, Johns Hopkins, Princeton, and Boston University. He helped launch the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice at Georgetown, and is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Lannan Foundation in Santa Fe, New Mexico.Music: Quantum Jazz — "Orbiting A Distant Planet" — Provided by Jamendo.

Readings & Talks Featuring Carolyn Forché

On March 18, 2021 the Lannan Center presented a Crowdcast webinar on the subject The View From Abroad: "What Can America Learn from the Experience of Other Nations at a Time of Crisis?" This was the launch event of "Beyond Identity: Reimagining the American Narrative," the Lannan Seminars at Georgetown University, and featured Aleksandar Hemon, Monica McWilliams, Ebrahim Rasool, and Elif Shafak. This event was moderated by BBC&apos;s Razia Iqbal. Hosted in association with Beyond Conflict and Beyond Borders Scotland. Cosponsored by the Conflict Resolution Program, the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, and the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics.About the Series “Beyond Identity: Reimagining the American Narrative”Present-day America is suffering from an identity crisis. Americans are raised to believe that democracy, freedom, and opportunity are the values deeply embedded in the nation’s character and practice. Yet, millions of Americans who have spent centuries striving towards equality under the  historic burden of racism, dealing with poverty or the absence of opportunity, might beg to disagree. To use a peacemaking approach is to focus on interests rather than positions, to refocus opposing groups on shared goals. But those goals must be grounded in a shared understanding of the past as the anchor to a shared vision for the future. America is at a reckoning point, in need of reappraisal. The standard response to what constitutes American identity has been: “the principles of liberty, equality, individualism, representative government, and private property”. But how does this character composition  comport with the demons of her past and present? What is to become America’s new narrative? Of her new, more truthful, identity born of both pride and pain?For more information about this series, please visit our website.Music: Quantum Jazz — "Orbiting A Distant Planet" — Provided by Jamendo.

The View From Abroad: "What Can America Learn from the Experience of Other Nations at a Time of Crisis?"

On March 16, 2021 the Lannan Center presented a Crowdcast webinar featuring Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, as part of "THIS LAND" the 2021 Lannan Center Symposium. Moderated by poet Carolyn Forché.About Joy HarjoIn 2019, Joy Harjo was appointed the 23rd United States Poet Laureate, the first Native American to hold the position. Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Harjo is an internationally known award-winning poet, writer, performer, and saxophone player of the Mvskoke/Creek Nation. Harjo’s nine books of poetry include An American Sunrise, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems, and She Had Some Horses. Harjo’s memoir Crazy Brave won several awards, including the PEN USA Literary Award for Creative Non-Fiction and the American Book Award. She is the recipient of the Ruth Lilly Prize from the Poetry Foundation for Lifetime Achievement, the 2015 Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets for proven mastery in the art of poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America, and the United States Artist Fellowship.About Carolyn ForchéCarolyn Forché is the former Director of the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice and a University Professor in the Department of English at Georgetown University. She is most recently the author of the poetry collection In the Lateness of the World: Poems (Penguin, 2020) and the memoir What You Have Heard Is True (Penguin Random House, 2019).  She has been a human rights activist for over thirty years.Music: Quantum Jazz — "Orbiting A Distant Planet" — Provided by Jamendo.

"THIS LAND": A Reading Featuring Poet Laureate Joy Harjo

On February 9, 2021  the Lannan Center presented a Crowdcast webinar featuring  Shane McCrae and Vievee Francis. Introductions by Lannan Fellows Joshua Kim and Renny Simone. Moderated by Carolyn Forché.Shane McCrae is the author of seven books of poetry, including Sometimes I Never Suffered (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020); In the Language of My Captor (Wesleyan University Press, 2017), which was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; and The Animal Too Big to Kill (Persea Books, 2015), winner of the 2014 Lexi Rudnitsky/Editor’s Choice Award. He is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. He teaches at Columbia University and lives in New York City.Vievee Francis was born in West Texas. She earned an MFA from the University of Michigan in 2009, and she received a Rona Jaffe Award the same year. She is the author of Forest Primeval (TriQuarterly Books, 2015), winner of the 2017 Kingsley Tufts Award; Horse in the Dark (Northwestern University Press, 2012), winner of the Cave Canem Northwestern University Press Poetry Prize; and Blue-Tail Fly (Wayne State University Press, 2006). The poet Adrian Matejka describes her poems as “revelations—of memory, of dust, of the cotton and marginalia strung together to make a history.” The recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem and the Kresge Foundation, Francis currently serves as an editor for Callaloo and teaches English and creative writing at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire.Music: Quantum Jazz — "Orbiting A Distant Planet" — Provided by Jamendo.

Readings & Talks Featuring Shane McCrae and Vievee Francis

On January 26, 2021 the Lannan Center presented a Crowdcast webinar featuring Javier Zamora and Natalie Scenters-Zapico. Introductions by Lannan Fellows Dennese Mae Javier and Nohora Arrieta Fernandez. Moderated by Carolyn Forché.Javier Zamora was born in La Herradura, El Salvador in 1990. His father fled El Salvador when he was a year old; and his mother when he was about to turn five. Both parents’ migrations were caused by the US-funded Salvadoran Civil War (1980-1992). In 1999, Javier migrated through Guatemala, Mexico, and eventually the Sonoran Desert. After a coyote abandoned his group in Oaxaca, Javier managed to make it to Arizona with the aid of other migrants. His first full-length collection, Unaccompanied (Copper Canyon Press, 2017), explores how immigration and the civil war have impacted his family. About Natalie Scenters-ZapicoNatalie Scenters-Zapico is a poet, educator, and activist from the sister cities of El Paso, Texas, USA and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, México. She is the author of Lima :: Limón (Copper Canyon Press 2019) and The Verging Cities (Colorado State University 2015). Her poems have been published and anthologized in a wide range of nationally and internationally distributed journals including POETRY, The Paris Review, Kenyon Review, and Best American Poetry 2015. Music: Quantum Jazz — "Orbiting A Distant Planet" — Provided by Jamendo.

Readings & Talks Featuring Javier Zamora and Natalie Scenters-Zapico

On November 17, 2020, the Lannan Center presented a Crowdcast webinar featuring Carmen Giménez Smith and José Olivarez. Introduced by Aminatta Forna and moderated by  English Department Chair Ricardo Ortíz and Professor Elizabeth Velez. Carmen Giménez Smith is most recently the author of Be Recorder (2020), which was shortlisted for both the National Book Award and the PEN Open Book Award. Her 2013 collection Milk and Filth, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. She is a Professor of English at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, VA.José Olivarez's debut book of poems, Citizen Illegal, was a finalist for the PEN/ Jean Stein Award and a winner of the 2018 Chicago Review of Books Poetry Prize. It was named a top book of 2018 by The Adroit Journal, NPR, and the New York Public Library. In 2019, he was awarded a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation.Music: Quantum Jazz — "Orbiting A Distant Planet" — Provided by Jamendo.

Readings & Talks Featuring Carmen Giménez Smith and José Olivarez

On October 20, 2020, the Lannan Center presented a Crowdcast webinar featuring Valeria Luiselli in conversation with Aminatta Forna. Introduced by Lakshmi Krishnan. Valeria Luiselli's recent novel, Lost Children Archive was a finalist for the 2019 Kirkus Prize for Fiction and long-listed for the 2019 Booker Prize, and has been named a best book of 2019 by Entertainment Weekly, Vanity Fair, Vulture, and Time. Lost Children Archive sits beside Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions, Luiselli’s ground-breaking book-length essay that has become a touchstone text for those looking to facilitate meaningful and informed conversations around the immigration crisis. Luiselli is also the author of the novels The Story of My Teeth and Faces in the Crowd, and Sidewalks, an essay collection. She is the recipient of a 2019 Macarthur “Genius Grant” and her works have been recognized by the National Book Critics Circle, The National Book Foundation, The New York Times, NPR, The Guardian, Publisher’s Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, BuzzFeed, Huffington Post, and the San Francisco Chronicle, among others. She is a writer in residence at Bard College in New York. Aminatta Forna is a novelist, memoirist, and essayist. She was born in Scotland and raised between Sierra Leone and the United Kingdom. She is the award-winning author of the novels Happiness (2018), The Hired Man (2013), The Memory of Love (2011), and Ancestor Stones (2006). She is also the author of the memoir The Devil that Danced on the Water (2002). Her honors include a Windham Campbell Award from Yale University, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Best Book Award 2011, and a Hurston Wright Legacy Award, among others. Forna is the current Director and Lannan Foundation Chair of Poetics at the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice. Music: Quantum Jazz — "Orbiting A Distant Planet" — Provided by Jamendo.

Valeria Luiselli in Conversation with Aminatta Forna | 2020-2021 Readings and Talks Series

On September 29, 2020 the Lannan Center presented a Crowdcast webinar featuring Susan Choi in Conversation with Maureen Corrigan. Introduction by Aminatta Forna.Susan Choi is most recently the author of Trust Exercise (2019), which won the National Book Award for fiction, and her first book for children, Camp Tiger (2019). Her first novel, The Foreign Student, won the Asian-American Literary Award for fiction.  Her second novel, American Woman, was a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize. Her third novel, A Person of Interest, was a finalist for the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award.  In 2010 she was named the inaugural recipient of the PEN/W.G. Sebald Award. Her fourth novel, My Education, received a 2014 Lammy Award. A recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, she teaches fiction writing at Yale and lives in Brooklyn.Maureen Corrigan is The Nicky and Jamie Grant Distinguished Professor of the Practice in Literary Criticism in the Department of English at Georgetown University. For the past 31 years, Corrigan has been the weekly book critic on the Peabody Award-winning NPR program, ''Fresh Air.'' She is also a Mystery Columnist for The Washington Post and publishes regularly on NPR on-line and The Wall Street Journal. Music: Quantum Jazz — "Orbiting A Distant Planet" — Provided by Jamendo.

Susan Choi in Conversation with Maureen Corrigan | 2020-2021 Readings and Talks Series

On May 18, 2020, author and 2019 Booker Prize Winner Bernardine Evaristo was interviewed by NPR&apos;s Maureen Corrigan (The Nicky and Jamie Grant Distinguished Professor of the Practice in Literary Criticism at Georgetown University) via Zoom. We apologize for the quality of the sound during the interview, which was made under COVID-19 conditions.Music: Quantum Jazz — "Orbiting A Distant Planet" — Provided by Jamendo.

Bernardine Evaristo in Conversation with Maureen Corrigan

On February 25, 2020, the Lannan Center presented a reading and talk featuring poets John Murillo and Tina Chang. Introduction by Patricia Guzman.John Murillo is the author of the poetry collections Up Jump the Boogie (2010), which was a finalist for both the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and the PEN Open Book Award, and Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry, forthcoming from Four Way Books in 2020. His work has appeared in Callaloo, Court Green, Ninth Letter, and Ploughshares, and is forthcoming in Angles of Ascent: A Norton Anthology of African-American Poetry. A graduate of New York University’s MFA program in creative writing, he is an assistant professor of English at Wesleyan University and teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Sierra Nevada College.Tina Chang is the author of the poetry collections Hybrida (2019), Of Gods & Strangers (2011), and Half-Lit Houses (2004). She is co-editor of the anthology Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia and Beyond (2008). Her poems have appeared in American Poet, McSweeney’s, Ploughshares, and The New York Times and anthologized in Identity Lessons, Poetry Nation, Asian American Literature, and Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation, among others. She has received awards from the Academy of American Poets, the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, Poets & Writers, and the Van Lier Foundation. Chang is the Poet Laureate of Brooklyn, the first woman named to this position, and she currently teaches poetry at Sarah Lawrence College.Music: Quantum Jazz — "Orbiting A Distant Planet" — Provided by Jamendo.

John Murillo and Tina Chang I 2019-2020 Readings and Talks Series

On February 18, 2020, the Lannan Center presented "Power and Language," a special event with Caine Prize winning writer Lesley Nneka Arimah. Welcome: Aminatta Forna (Director of the Lannan Center, Georgetown University). Introduction: Scott Taylor (Director of the African Studies Program, Georgetown University).Lesley Nneka Arimah is the author of “Skinned,” winner of the 2019 Caine Prize for African Writing; What It Means When A Man Falls From the Sky (2017), her debut short story collection; and “Light,” winner of the 2015 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for Africa. What It Means When A Man Falls From the Sky was chosen for the New York Times/PBS book club and won both the 2017 New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award and the 2017 Kirkus Prize. Arimah holds a BA in English from Florida State University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Minnesota State University. Currently, Arimah is a 2019 United States Artist Fellow in Writing living in Las Vegas.Music: Quantum Jazz — "Orbiting A Distant Planet" — Provided by Jamendo.

"Power and Language" with Caine Prize Winner Lesley Nneka Arimah

On January 21, 2020, the Lannan Center presented a reading and talk featuring poet Terrance Hayes. Terrance Hayes is the author of American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassins (Penguin, 2018), a finalist for the 2018 National Book Award in Poetry; To Float In The Space Between: Drawings and Essays in Conversation with Etheridge Knight (Wave, 2018); How to Be Drawn (2015); Lighthead (2010), which won the 2010 National Book Award for poetry; Muscular Music, which won the Kate Tufts Discovery Award; Hip Logic, winner of the 2001 National Poetry Series, and Wind in a Box. An artist-in-residence at New York University, Hayes currently resides in New York City.Music: Quantum Jazz — "Orbiting A Distant Planet" — Provided by Jamendo.

Terrance Hayes I 2019-2020 Readings and Talks Series

On December 5, 2019, the Lannan Center presented a special event featuring author Juan Gabriel Vásquez. This event was introduced by Aminatta Forna and moderated by Marie Arana.Juan Gabriel Vásquez is the author of numerous novels, including The Shape of the Ruins (2018), which was shortlisted for the 2019 International Man Booker Prize; Reputations (2013), a New York Times Best Book of the Year; and The Sound of Things Falling (2011), a National Bestseller and winner of the 2014 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Vásquez’s novels have been published in twenty-five languages worldwide. After sixteen years in France, Belgium, and Spain, he now lives in Bogotá.Music: Quantum Jazz — "Orbiting A Distant Planet" — Provided by Jamendo.

“Power and Language”: Juan Gabriel Vásquez in Conversation with Marie Arana

Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice at Georgetown University is a literary, critical, and pedagogical undertaking devoted to the situation of poetry and poetics in the contemporary world. Based in the President’s Office, the Center brings attention to a traditional domain of academic research, but sees poetry as a current practice rather than as a field of historical research. The Center recognizes that “art’s social presence,” in the phrase of Adrienne Rich, is vital to contemporary culture; that poetry, or writing more generally, traverses the fields of aesthetic, social, political, and religious thought: it reconfigures these fields according to the designs of imagination. The Lannan Center hosts Readings and Talks throughout the academic year. Music: Quantum Jazz — "Orbiting A Distant Planet" — Provided by Jamendo.

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Lannan Center Podcast

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