Global bazaar meets county fair at NYU’s “Literary Mews,” the third-annual festival within the PEN World Voices Festival, with a series of events on the NYU campus showcasing poetry, literature, and music--May 7 & 8.
Global bazaar meets county fair at NYU’s “Literary Mews,” the third-annual festival within the PEN World Voices Festival, with a series of events on the NYU campus showcasing poetry, literature, and music.
A preview event will be held May 7; the main festival is on May 8 and features panels, readings, performances, music, an outdoor book fair, and more. All events are free and open to the public. RSVPs are required as indicated. For general questions, contact Cathleen Wolf at Deutsches Haus: 212.998.8126 or cw104@nyu.edu. For more information and a complete schedule of events, click here.
PREVIEW EVENT
Thursday, May 7, 7 p.m.
The New Salon: Poets in Conversation
Yona Harvey was awarded the 2014 Kate Tufts Discovery Award for her debut collection, Hemming the Water. Afaa Weaver’s most recent collection of poems is City of Eternal Spring. He is the recipient of the 2014 Kingsley Tufts Award. This event is hosted by Charif Shanahan and co-sponsored with the Poetry Society of America.
Location: NYU Creative Writing Program, Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House, 58 West 10th Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues)
MAY 8 EVENTS AND STREET FESTIVAL
10:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. Writers Workshop: Perspectives From African Writers with Véronique Tadjo and Rashidah Ismaili
Véronique Tadjo (Ivory Coast) is a writer, academic, artist and author of books for young people. The title of Tadjo’s latest novel is Loin de mon père. Rashidah Ismaili (Benin) is an essayist, poet, playwright, activist and conference convener. Ismaili’s new novel in linked stories is Autobiography of the Lower East Side. Presented by Africa House and the Institute of African American Affairs.
RSVP: www.nyuafricahouse.org
Location: NYU Africa House and Institute of African American Affairs, 14A Washington Mews, 1st floor space
12:00 – 1:00 p.m. Opening Panel: Discussing Diaspora
In this panel, a group of distinguished international authors discuss their thoughts on the Diaspora. Featuring Rashidah Ismaili, Abdourahman Waberi, Kerry Young, and Cormac James, among others. Moderated by Eric Banks.
RSVP: www.irelandhouse.fas.nyu.edu
Location: Glucksman Ireland House NYU, 1 Washington Mews
1:15 – 2:15 p.m. African Musical Workshop -The Art of Storytelling Through Music
RSVP: www.nyuafricahouse.org
Location: NYU Africa House, 44 Washington Mews
2:00 – 3:00 p.m. A Conversation with Jean-Christophe Rufin
Jean-Christophe Rufin is a prize-winning French novelist, historian, former ambassador to Senegal, and one of the founders of Doctors without Borders. He was elected to the Académie Française in 2008. His books include The Abyssinian; Brazil Red; and The Red Collar (forthcoming from Europa Editions), a novel on war and its aftermath.
RSVP: maison.francaise@nyu.edu
Location: La Maison Française NYU, 16 Washington Mews (at University Place)
3:00 – 4:00 p.m. Author Reading and Lecture: Abdourahman Waberi
Originally hailing from Djibouti, Abdourahman Waberi is a novelist, essayist, poet, academic, and short-story writer. In addition to his writing and teaching, he is a regular contributor to Le Monde. His work is translated into a multitude of languages. This lecture will focus on his individual writing, translation, and the process of writing in diaspora.
RSVP
Location: NYU Abu Dhabi, 19 Washington Square North
4:00 – 6:00 p.m. New Voices in North African Poetry
A program of readings performed by North African poets with English translation, moderated by Professor Deborah Kapchan of Performance Studies, Anthropology, and Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies at NYU.
Location: The Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies NYU, 255 Sullivan Street (at Washington Square South)
4:00 – 6:00 p.m. Afro-Asian Mixtapes: Overlapping Literary Diasporas in the Caribbean
A reading and listening session highlighting the literary intersections between Asian and African diasporas in the Caribbean. Featuring writers and scholars Kerry Young (Pao and Gloria), and Ifeona Fulani (Ten Days in Jamaica).
RSVP: www.apa.nyu.edu/events
Location: Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU, 8 Washington Mews
5:00 – 6:00 p.m. Discussing "Another Country. South Africa: New Portraits"
A conversation between photographer Reiner Leist and Hlonipha Mokoena, professor of anthropology at Columbia University.
RSVP: deutscheshaus.rsvp@nyu.edu
Location: Deutsches Haus at NYU, 42 Washington Mews (corner of University Place)
5:00 – 6:30 p.m. Poetry Reading
Amaud Jamaul Johnson’s most recent book, Darktown Follies, received the 2014 Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Legacy Award in Poetry. Parneshia Jones is the author of the debut collection, Vessel. Ladan Osman’s first book, The Kitchen Dweller’s Testimony, won the 2014 Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets. Co-sponsored with Cave Canem Foundation.
Location: NYU Creative Writing Program, Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House, 58 West 10th Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues)
5:00 – 6:00 p.m. Cormac James launches The Surfacing
Irish novelist Cormac James launches The Surfacing about a ship threatened by ever-hardening Arctic ice when its lieutenant discovers a stowaway will give birth to his child and finds the courage to lead.
RSVP: www.irelandhouse.fas.nyu.edu
Location: Glucksman Ireland House NYU, 1 Washington Mews
6:00 – 7:00 p.m. The Passion of Elena Ferrante
Award-winning translator Ann Goldstein (The New Yorker) and NYU professor Rebecca Falkoff will discuss the anonymous Italian author, whose devastatingly honest novels—particularly the epic Neapolitan tetralogy—have moved readers to a rare and visceral passion. Their dialogue will reflect on the powerful emotions narrated and elicited by the novels. Ann Goldstein will speak about her work as a translator, and about the ways in which the novels foreground translation through references to dialect. Rebecca Falkoff will talk about the cultural context of Ferrante’s work, and the different reception of the Neapolitan novels in Italy and the United States.
RSVP
Location: Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò NYU, 24 West 12th Street
7:30 p.m. Everything: Scatter, Scatter
This conversation and screening examining the work of the late poet and theorist, Édouard Glissant, gathers some of his principal interlocutors towards the end of his career to consider the conceptual and practical utility of his concept of multiplicity and relation as key to calibrating the tension between the self and the other as a consequence of the colonial encounter—and central to the ongoing quest for human freedom. Participants include Manthia Diawara (US/Mali), Veronique Tadjo (France/Côte d'Ivoire), Fred Moten (US), and Achille Mbembe (US/Cameroon). Moderated by Christopher Winks (US).
RSVP
Location: NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, 24 West 12th Street
OUTDOORS: ON THE MEWS
Location: Washington Mews (between 5th Avenue and University Place below 8th Street)
12:00 – 5:00 p.m. LITERARY MAGAZINE AND BOOK FAIR ON THE MEWS
Participating publishers include Akashic Books, A Public Space, Bellevue Literary Press, Fence/Fence Books, Kweli Journal, Nightboat, St. Petersburg Review, Washington Square Review, Words without Borders, Soho Press, and Ugly Duckling Presse.
Curated by the NYU Creative Writing Program and the Community of Literary Magazines & Presses
12:00 – 5:00 p.m. FOOD TRUCKS SERVE UP INTERNATIONAL CUISINE
ON STAGE:
1:00 – 1:30 p.m. Sounds of Africa: Tiga Jean Baptiste
2:00 - 3:00 p.m. German musical performance
3:00 – 4:00 p.m. Dan Neely and friends perform traditional Irish tunes
Dan Neely and his terrific ensemble will play traditional Irish tunes outdoors on Washington Mews.
Location: Washington Mews at Fifth Avenue, New York, NY
The Literary Mews is presented with the support of: NYU’s Vice Provost for Faculty, Arts, Humanities and Diversity; the Humanities Initiative at New York University; Arts & Sciences Dean for the Humanities Graduate School of Arts & Science Office of the Dean; and NYU’s Department of English.