Caribbean authors at the Brooklyn Book Festival

Below are a list of events with Caribbean-identified authors before and during the Brooklyn Book Festival. The list may be incomplete. All events free unless otherwise noted.

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BOOKEND EVENTS

 

The Word Is Fresh: Bocas presents new Caribbean poets
Thurs, 17 September, 7:00pm
Old Stone House 336 3rd St., Brooklyn, NY 11215

An inspiring line up of new (and newish) Caribbean poets, including:

  • Vladimir Lucien, winner of the coveted 2015 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature for his debut poetry collection Sounding Ground
  • Tiphanie Yanique, prize-winning author who will read from her first poetry collection, Wife
  • Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné, winner of the 2015 Hollick Arvon Prize for poetry, and Sassy Ross both featured in Coming Up Hot, a new poetry anthology to be launched at this event

Hosted by Nicholas Laughlin, poet and NGC Bocas Lit Fest programme director.

More info here.

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Picture This: Visual and Verbal (Re)Imagining of the Contemporary Caribbean
Fri, 18 September. 7:00pm
South Oxford Space, 138 South Oxford St., Brooklyn, NY 11217
$10

An evening of reading and conversations on imagining the contemporary Caribbean in fiction, poetry and photography. The evening features a medley of writers bringing the literary heart and art of Antigua & Barbuda, Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago: fiction writers Tanya Batson Savage (Pumpkin Belly and Other Stories), Kellie Magnus (Little Lion), and Nandi Keyi-Ogunlade (True Nanny Diaries); urban poets Owen Blakka Ellis (Riddim & Riddles) and Iyaba Ibo Mandingo (41 Times, Amerikkkan Exile, and 40 days n 40 nights of write). Latoya West-Blackwood will journey through the visual imaginings with the book My Jamaica. A book bashment follows.

More info here.

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Haiti Cultural Exchange presents:
Café Conversations with Gina Athena Ulysse, author of Why Haiti Needs New Narratives: A Post-Quake Chronicle
Saturday, 19 September, 1:00pm
Dweck Center, Brooklyn Public Library, 10 Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, NY, 11238
Free (Suggestion Donation $10)

Mainstream news coverage of the catastrophic earthquake of 2010 reproduced longstanding narratives and stereotypes of Haiti. Cognizant that this Haiti, as it exists in the public sphere, is a rhetorically and graphically incarcerated one, the feminist anthropology professor at Wesleyan and performance artist Gina Athena Ulysse embarked on a writing spree that lasted over two years. As an ethnographer and a member of the diaspora, Ulysse delivers critical cultural analysis of geopolitics and daily life in a series of dispatches, op-eds and articles on post-quake Haiti.

More info here.

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Women’s Voices and Caribbean Literature
Saturday, 19 September, 2:00pm
MoCADA 80 Hanson Place, Brooklyn, NY, 11217
General Donation: $10.00. Students: $5.00.

The Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College presents a literary salon with Naomi Jackson (The Star Side of Bird Hill) in conversation with Rosalind Kilkenny McLymont (The Guyana Contract).  Presented in collaboration with Penguin Press and The Network Journal.

This event is a fundraiser for the Center for Black Literature.

More info here.

 

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FESTIVAL EVENTS – Sunday, 20 September

 

​Finalists of the St. Francis College Literary Prize
St. Francis College Auditorium, 180 Remsen St
10:00am

St. Francis College Presents Finalists of the St. Francis College Literary Prize.  Maud Casey (The Man Who Walked Away), David Gilbert (& Sons), Rene Steinke (Friendswood), Marlon James (A Brief History of Seven Killings)and Paul Beatty (The Sellout) and more. Moderated by Daniel Torday.

More info here.

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​Why Fiction Matters
Brooklyn Historical Society Library, 128 Pierrepont St
12:00pm

This discussion of the importance of fiction in contemporary life kicks off a series of essays commissioned by The Center for Fiction to celebrate its upcoming move to the BAM Cultural District. With Alexander Chee, Mitchell Jackson, Roxana Robinson, and Tiphanie Yanique. Moderated by Noreen Tomassi, Center for Fiction.

More info here.

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Today’s Yesterday
Borough Hall Courtroom, 209 Joralemon St
12:00pm

Master storytellers Michael Datcher (Americus) and Esmeralda Santiago (Conquistadora) discuss their compelling and tragic historical fictions. Set in the turbulent eras of the U.S. and Puerto Rico, their stories ring familiar with passions that change lives and cultural brutalities that define racism and classism running as rampant in the past as today. With twin brothers in both stories, there is twice as much havoc in families caught up in their lives and loves.  Moderated by Theo Gangi, St. Francis College.

More info here.

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​Confronting Tomorrow
Brooklyn Historical Society Library, 128 Pierrepont St
1:00pm

At the intersection of youth and adulthood, three young protagonists and their friends and families confront realities that change their lives. Joanne Hillhouse (Musical Youth) Tanwi Nandini Islam (Bright Lines), and Matthew McGevna (Little Beasts) deal with actions that change one and cannot be changed. Short readings and discussion. Moderated by Ian Maloney, St. Francis College.

More info here.

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The Search for the Discussible Book
St. Francis College Workshop Room, 180 Remsen St
1:00pm

Reading Group Choices (RGC) will provide tips on how to start and maintain a reading group, and how to choose discussible books. Attendees will receive copies of RGC¹s 2016 edition. Following the discussion, authors featured with Reading Group Choices will tell you abouttheir books through a few fun rounds of author-speed-dating! The participating authors are: Naomi Jackson (The Other Side of Bird Hill), Akhil Sharma (Family Life), Maggie Thrash (Honor Girl), and Rebecca Dinerstein (The Sunlit Night).

More info here.

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Time Traveling
Borough Hall Courtroom, 209 Joralemon St
2:00pm

Three writers discuss what riveted them to the time and location of their most recent novels and how the past speaks to the present. Jami Attenberg’s Saint Mazie is set in early-20th-century New York; Marlon James’s A Brief History of Seven Killings takes place in Jamaica in the 1970s, and Stewart O’Nan’s West of Sunset follows F. Scott Fitzgerald to Hollywood in the 1930s. Moderated by Nicholas Laughlin, Bocas Lit Fest.

More info here.

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​Triple Crown
St. Ann & The Holy Trinity Church, 157 Montague St
2:00pm

Join three prolific literary powerhouses as they read from their recent work: Esmeralda Santiago (Conquistadora), National Book Award Winner and New York Times bestselling author Joyce Carol Oates (The Lost Landscape), and Pulitzer Prize finalist Russell Banks (A Permanent Member of the Family). Q & A moderated by New York Times Book Review editor Greg Cowles.

More info here.

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Between Two Worlds
Borough Hall Media Room, 209 Joralemon St
3:00pm

Naomi Jackson (The Star Side of Bird Hill), Yitzhak Gormezano Goren (Alexandrian Summer), and Juan Villoro (The Guilty: Stories) present the push and pull of navigating between worlds – sisters sent from Brooklyn to live in Barbados; the Egyptian upper middle class fleeing Alexandria for Israel; and contemporary Mexicans and Americans overlapping cultures and preconceptions. Geography, history and a search for authenticity create an interplay of desire and rejection and sometimes humor about a place and time.  Moderated by Malaika Adero.

More info here.

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Best of Brooklyn
St. Ann & The Holy Trinity Church, 157 Montague St
3:30pm

The Brooklyn Book Festival pays homage to the Festival’s literary heritage each year by presenting the BoBi Award to an author who exemplifies the spirit and character of Brooklyn. Join 2015 BoBi Honoree Jonathan Lethem (Lucky Alan: And Other Stories), in conversation with past BoBi honorees Edwidge Danticat (Claire of the Sea Light) and Pete Hamill (Snow in August) as they talk about a writer’s life and being part of, and influenced by, Brooklyn’s literary lineage. Moderated by Johnny Temple, Brooklyn Literary Council Chair.

More info here.

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Scams and Swindles: Hustling to Survive
Borough Hall Media Room, 209 Joralemon St
5:00pm

Fiston Mwanza Mujila (Tram 83), Pierre Lemaître (The Great Swindle) and Kettly Mars (Savage Seasons) variously explore the modern African gold rush, veterans in a post-WW 1 Europe, and Haiti’s dictatorship in the 1960s; what they have in common is a searing examination of the human costs of political upheaval. Join them for a conversation about the surprising skills their characters must develop in order to survive.  Moderated by Tom Roberge, Albertine.

More info here.

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Lost and Found
Brooklyn Law School Student Lounge, 250 Joralemon St
5:00pm

Family, culture, violence and loss infuse a collection of poems by Colin Channer (Providential), Jennifer Pashley’s novel The Scamp, and a short-story collection by Russell Banks (A Permanent Member of the Family). Hitched to their past, characters struggle to find optimistic possibilities, or follow a trail of blood and self-destruction. Short readings and discussion. Moderated by Christopher John Farley (Game World, Wall Street Journal).

More info here.