Poetry off the Shelf: USA Artists featuring Chris Abani, Natalie Diaz & Achy Obejas
61 West Superior Street
Free Admission
Join us for a reading and reception celebrating three 2014 United States Artist Fellows.
2014 USA Ford Fellow in Literature Chris Abani was born in Nigeria to an Igbo father and a white English mother, and raised in Nigeria and London. The bi-cultural, bi-racial, bi-lingual nature of his upbringing is a consistent theme in his fourteen books of prose and poetry, which include The Secret History of Las Vegas, GraceLand, Daphne’s Lot and Sanctificum. He has a masters degree and a Ph.D. from USC and a master’s degree from the University of London. Abani is a Board of Trustees Professor of English at Northwestern University.
2014 USA Ford Fellow in Literature Natalie Diaz's first book When My Brother Was an Aztec (2012) has been critically acclaimed. Writing about her history and community, Diaz has committed herself to studying and preserving the Mojave language at Fort Mojave. A former professional basketball player, Diaz compares the rhythm of her poetry to the rhythm of the game. Diaz is the recipient of the Narrative Prize for Poetry, the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, and the 2014 Holmes National Poetry Prize.
2014 USA Ford Fellow in Literature Achy Obejas has written fiction, poetry, and journalism. Her poetry chapbook, This is What Happened in Our Other Life, was both a critical favorite and a best-seller. Born in Havana, Cuba, Obejas writes about the struggle between public and private identities, the effects of power and powerlessness, and finding the beating human heart of those we are taught to believe are enemies. The rare translator who can work in and out of two languages, she has translated into English such contemporary Latin American writers as Rita Indiana, F. G. Haghenbeck and Wendy Guerra. She is the recipient of many awards including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in poetry. She is currently the Distinguished Visiting Writer at Mills College in Oakland, California.
