Boubacar Boris Diop is the headliner of the Neustadt Lit Fest 2022 which happens virtually and in-person at the University of Oklahoma, USA from October 24-26, 2022.
The Neustadt Lit Fest is a literary and cultural festival, established by World Literature Today executive director Robert Con Davis-Undiano in 2004. It focuses on the Neustadt Prize winner and happens annually at the University of Oklahoma, USA.
The winner of the Neustadt Prize this year is Boubacar Boris Diop and thus the Senegalese will be the headline act at the festival. He is the author of many novels, plays, and essays. Toni Morrison called his novel Murambi: The Book of Bones “a miracle,” and the Zimbabwe International Book Fair listed it as one of the 100 best African books of the 20th century.
The lit fest will take place in person and on Zoom, with all in-person events simultaneously livestreamed on Zoom. Participating writers/scholars include Anna Badkhen (Writer and Guggenheim Fellow), Bojana Coulibaly (Harvard University), Jennifer Croft (the Man Booker Prize–winning translator who successfully nominated Diop for the award), Marame Gueye (East Carolina University), Fatoumata Seck (Stanford University), and Mamadou Tangara (Foreign Affairs Minister, The Gambia) as well as Oklahoma University African Studies Institute professors Kalenda Eaton, Rita Keresztesi, and Bala Saho. Senegalese filmmaker Maky Madiba Sylla will also give a talk about his work, sponsored by the Oklahoma University Department of Film and Media Studies.
For more information on how to participate, with Zoom links, dates, and times, please click here.
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