Readings with Kenyan Writers

Reading by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor and Billy Kahora

The Department of English and the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin invites you to a symposium featuring two of the most exciting and innovative writers in contemporary African literature, visiting the United States for a brief tour before returning to Kenya: Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor and Billy Kahora
Please join us, this Tuesday, May 19th, from 5-7 pm, in CLA 1.302D, in the Glickman Center.

Yvonne Owuor’s long-awaited 2014 novel, Dust, is one of the most important new work of fiction in a while, full stop, period. It’s a revelation; aesthetically adventurous, politically challenging, and just incredibly powerful as a novel. It’s a novel that makes me run out of superlatives. 
Billy Kahora is quietly one of the most influential movers and shakers in the literary world on the continent: he’s the editor of Kwani? (the most important literary journal in East Africa) and also an editor at Chimurenga, a similarly important and vibrant South African literary journal. He’s a remarkable writer (and his upcoming novel is going to be AMAZING), but he’s also one of the handful of people building the new infrastructures of literary publishing on the continent, which he’ll talk about.

Here’s a video of Yvonne Owuor (introduced by Binyavanga Wainaina):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6OqqkcPVEY

And here’s a shorter interview with Billy Kahora:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dILAWL-kKhw

CONVENERS: Aaron Bady, Barbara Harlow, and Neville Hoad 
UT AUSTIN SPONSORS: This event is made possible thanks to the generous support of: The Department of English, The Ethnic & Third World (E3W) Literatures Specialization, and The Michener Center for Writers. 
CONTACT INFORMATION:

Aaron Bady: aaronbady@utexas.edu 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/836766086399200/