6:00pm
9 October 2018
Event Oval, The Diana Center
3009 Broadway, New York, NY 10027
The Barnard Center for Research on Women (BCRW) and Small Axe: A Journal of Caribbean Criticism host a reading and conversation between authors Erna Brodber (Nothing’s Mat; The Rainmaker’s Mistake, among others) and Nicole Dennis-Benn (Here Comes the Sun) in the newly-expanded series, Critical Caribbean Feminisms. These authors will discuss issues including the Caribbean and its diaspora, method, feminism, and gender in their work. The conversation with be followed by a discussion moderated by Kaiama L. Glover.
About the Speakers
Activist, scholar, and writer Erna Brodber has, over the course of a four-decade career, established herself as a major voice in Caribbean literature. Her distinctive polyvocal narratives draw upon the oral and scribal traditions of the African diaspora, echoing sources as diverse as the folk tales of Anansi the spider-god and the modernist novels of James Joyce. For Brodber, the past is never really dead—an idea she literalizes in Myal, where “spirit thievery” and zombification become a powerful trope for the psychological and political legacies of colonial exploitation. Recipient of a Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction (2017), a Prince Claus Award (2006), the Musgrave Medal (1999), and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (1989), Brodber holds an Honorary D.Litt. from the University of West Indies at Mona (2011).
Nicole Dennis-Benn is the author of the debut novel, Here Comes the Sun (Norton/Liveright, July 2016). Dennis-Benn is a Lambda Literary Award winner, named by Time Out Magazine as an immigrant making a stamp on New York City. Her debut novel has received much acclaim including a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and NPR Best Books of 2016. Dennis-Benn is a Kowald Visiting Faculty in City College’s MFA Program and Faculty in the Creative Writing Program at NYU; and has been awarded fellowships from MacDowell Colony, Hedgebrook, Lambda, Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, Hurston/Wright, and Sewanee Writers’ Conference. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, ELLE Magazine, Electric Literature, Lenny Letter, Catapult, Red Rock Review, Kweli Literary Journal, Mosaic, Ebony, and the Feminist Wire. She is a graduate of St. Andrew High School for Girls and Cornell University; and holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College.
This event is free and open to the public. The venue is accessible to people with mobility disabilities. Please contact the Barnard Center for Research on Women for additional accessibility needs.
Co-Sponsored by Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism
Above text and Nicole Dennis-Benn image adapted from event webpage. Erna Brodber image from Windham-Campbell Prize website.
