Afro-Asian Mixtapes: Overlapping Literary Diasporas in the Caribbean

UPDATE: This event has reached full capacity and no additional RSVPs will be accepted at this time. Walk-ins will be seated as capacity allows.

A/P/A Institute at NYU participates in The Literary Mews, part of the PEN World Voices Festival, for the third year in a row. Part-literary festival, part-street fair on the Washington Mews, the all-day 2015 Literary Mews presents readings and performances from the African Diaspora. Join us at 4PM for a reading and listening session highlighting the literary intersections between Asian and African diasporas in the Caribbean. Featuring writers Ifeona Fulani (Ten Days in Jamaica) and Kerry Young (Pao and Gloria). Moderated by Rishi Nath (York College).

The A/P/A Institute at NYU supports the sentiments expressed by the signatories who have objected to PEN’s decision to award Charlie Hebdo with the PEN/Toni and James C. Goodale Freedom of Expression Courage Award.

See the full Literary Mews festival schedule here. Highlights include the opening festival panel, Discussing Diaspora, in which Kerry Young will be participating.

Image: “Your Mixtape Here” by Daniel is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Ifeona Fulani teaches in the Global Liberal Studies Program at New York University. Her research interests include Caribbean and Black British literatures and cultures and her recent publications in this field include a volume of essays, Archipelagos of Sound: Transnational Caribbeanities, Women and Music (University of West Indies Press, 2012). Her scholarly articles have been published in journals such as Small Axe, Anthurium, and Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies. She is also a creative writer and author of a collection of short stories titled Ten Days in Jamaica, published in 2012), and a novel, Seasons of Dust (1997), as well as stories published in the Beacon’s Best anthology series, in Small Axe, and in Black Renaissance /Renaissance Noir. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing and a PhD in Comparative Literature, both from New York University.

Kerry Young was born in Kingston, Jamaica, to a Chinese father and mother of mixed Chinese-African heritage. Her first novel Pao (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2011) was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award 2011, East Midlands Book Award (2012), and Commonwealth Book Prize 2012. Her second novel Gloria (Bloomsbury Circus, 2013), was shortlisted for the East Midlands Book Award (2013), longlisted for the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature (2014), and nominated for the 2015 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

Young came to England at the age of ten. Her background is in youth work where she worked both locally and nationally, and has also written extensively. Young is a reader for The Literary Consultancy, a tutor for the Arvon Foundation, and a Fellow on the Royal Literary Fund Fellowship Programme where she is writer-in-residence at The University of Sheffield. She is also Honorary Assistant Professor in the School of English at The University of Nottingham.

Rishi Nath was a 2013-2014 A/P/A Institute Visiting Scholar at NYU where he studied contemporary music and literature arising from Afro-Asian encounters in the West. He was a 2012-2013 Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) Open City Fellow for Creative Nonfiction, and continues to be a regular contributor to AAWW magazines The Margins and Open City. He is currently on leave until September 2015 from the City University of New York, where he teaches mathematics.