Category: Faculty Spotlight

10 posts in Category: Faculty Spotlight

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Gabriel Bump



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“I wanted to represent the spectacular average,” writes Gabriel Bump about his debut novel Everywhere You Don’t Belong, “the sometimes plain and sometimes harrowing journeys of all of us in the middle.”

Everywhere You Don’t Belong (Algonquin 2020) was hailed by Tommy Orange as “A comically dark coming-of-age story about growing up on the South Side of Chicago, but it’s also social commentary at its finest, woven seamlessly into the work . . . Bump’s meditation on belonging and not belonging, where or with whom, how love is a way home no matter where you are, is handled so beautifully that you don’t know he’s hypnotized you until he’s done.” Bump currently lives and teaches in Buffalo, New York.

Read his latest short story in the Brooklyn Rail or his essay on book touring in the early days of the coronavirus.

 

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A Disquiet alum who returned as a staff member and who we were thrilled to be able to bring back as faculty to lead a fiction workshop in 2020, we hope he’ll be able to make it back to Lisbon for 2021.

You can order Everywhere You Don’t Belong here or anywhere books are sold.

Ondjaki



ondjaki on the floor

“The Portuguese language in Angola, whether used by a citizen in daily life, by a child, by a woman who sells things in the street, by a sea-shell seller, a politician or a writer, is a singular instrument of self-expression and creation. It’s even each person’s private theatre,” says Ondjaki (the pen name of Ndalu de Almeida).

One of the most important Angolan writers of the post-independence period, Ondjaki has written novels for adults and children as well as poetry and screenplays. His novel Transparent City, a work “of radiant beauty and heart” (Bongani Kona) and “a contemporary masterpiece” (Trevor Corkum) won the prestigious Jose Saramago Prize in 2013 and the English translation was named a Globe and Mail Best Book of 2018.

 

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You can read an interview between Ondjaki and his English translator Stephen Henighan, check out an excerpt from his novel Good Morning, Comrades! at Words Without Borders, or buy the English translation of Transparent City here.

Ondjaki was scheduled to speak at Disquiet 2020 and we hope that he’ll be able to join us in 2021.

 

Shayla Lawson



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Shayla Lawson “writes like you’re having a conversation with your smartest, wisest, funniest friend and you don’t want it to end.” (R. Eric Thomas). Her new book of essays, This Is Major: Notes on Diana Ross, Dark Girls, and Being Dope, comes out today from Harper Perennial, available here and everywhere.

The author of three books of poetry, most recently I Think I’m Ready to See Frank Ocean, and a professor at Amherst College, Lawson’s other projects include curating The Tenderness Project with Ross Gay and performing with her band The Oceanographers.

Hear her poem “Pantone 427 U“, read “Forrest Gump“, or hear her read from This Is Major at a Zoom reading for THE ANTIBODY.

Shayla Lawson was scheduled to lead a poetry workshop at Disquiet 2020, and we hope she’ll return for 2021.

 

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Arthur Flowers



Arthur Flowers

Not many writers can say they’ve written a holy book, but five-time Disquiet faculty member Arthur Flowers’ latest, The Hoodoo Book of Flowers: The Great Black Book of Generations, is precisely that.

A truly incomparable work, HBOF weaves together fablistic retellings of classic African-American tales and anecdotes, homages to African-American literary griots that came before him, memoiristic ruminations on life and mission, and distillations of principles and beliefs that show the way forward. It is not hyperbole to say once again of the work of one of our faculty, that his is required reading for the moment. Available now in a limited edition hardcover from Burke’s Book Store in Memphis or on Kindle.

Flowers is a blues-based performance poet, novelist, and essayist, whose other recent works include a reimagining of the Brer Rabbit stories and a graphic novel about Martin Luther King, Jr. I See the Promised Land, an “extraordinary jam session” combining the distinctive storytelling traditions of Flowers and his collaborator Indian scroll painter Manu Chitrakar. Flowers has also written two novels: De Mojo Blues, about black soldiers in Vietnam, which caught the attention of Spike Lee who brought Flowers in to consult on Da 5 Bloods, and the novel that comes as close to song as prose gets, Another Good Lovin’ Blues.

He has brought the house down many a time in Lisbon for Disquiet, both in his collaborations with Erica Dawson and solo. Watch a performance by Arthur here or here.

In addition to his work and his performance, Flowers is a renowned teacher who just retired after teaching for more than twenty years in the Syracuse University MFA program. His humble approach to art and teaching is perhaps best encapsulated in this quote: “As to if my works make the cut, who knows, who cares. You write the best books you can write, the most serious and sincere work you can produce; you let the generations decide their worth.”

Arthur was scheduled to bring his Performance and Storytelling workshop once again to DISQUIET 2020, and we expect he’ll return in 2021

 

Ana Paula Tavares



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“The poetry of place was a long apprenticeship. It was not inside me. This was a language I had to learn,” says Ana Paula Ribeiro Tavares, whose work is known for its spare language, subtle eroticism, and strong sense of place. A poet and historian, Tavares is the author of seven books and the recipient of numerous prizes. She teaches Lusophone African literature at the Catholic University of Lisbon.

Prior to coming to Lisbon she grew up and lived in many different regions of Angola, serving as, among other roles, the culture delegate for Kwanza-Sul province and heading up the Research Bureau of the Centro Nacional de Documentação e Investigação Histórica in Luanda. She also served on the Angolan Commission of UNESCO. Her recent work includes Words for a Dictionary of Affection (2016) as well as several other collaborations with fellow Lusophone authors.

Ana Paula Tavares was scheduled to speak at Disquiet 2020, and we hope to be able to reschedule her for 2021. You can hear and read her poems in the original and English translation at lyrikline.org, or read Richard Zenith’s translations here.

 

Germano Almeida



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Germano Almeida, the author of eighteen books and the founder of the publishing house Ilhéu Editora, was born in Cape Verde and practices law on the island of São Vicente. In 2018, he received the Prémio Camões, the most important prize for Portuguese-language writers. Read his story “The Best-Seller” or the recent essay “Cabo Verde is the Center of the World” in Words Without Borders.

Almeida’s 1989 debut novel The Last Will & Testament of Senhor da Silva Araújo, which “uses a very sophisticated, humorous, but at the same time melancholic style” (El Pais), is considered a major work of Cape Verdean literature. It was translated into English by Sheila Faria Glaser and published by New Directions.

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Almeida was scheduled to speak at Disquiet 2020, and we hope to reschedule him for 2021.

Carla Fernandes, AfroLis and the Djidiu Collective



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Lisbon’s Djidiu Collective includes poets and storytellers from the African diaspora who meet and perform their works regularly throughout
the city. “Djidiu” means “storyteller” in Guinea-Bissau Creole.

Carla Fernandes, founder of the Djidiu Collective as well as the audioblog Radio AfroLis, says the goal of both projects is to
present “the stories of the African diaspora in Lisbon in the first person, from the source, to document the emerging Black consciousness
of Portugal.” Fernandes worked as a radio journalist with Deutsche Welle’s Portuguese for Africa before returning to Lisbon in 2014.

Fernandes and members of the Djidiu collective were scheduled to perform at Disquiet 2020 for the first time, and we’re hoping to reschedule them for 2021.

You can hear members of the Djidiu Collective perform their poetry here and here (in Portuguese).

A brief introduction to the group is available in Portuguese here.

 

 

Maaza Mengiste



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Maaza Mengiste’s second novel The Shadow King, about the Ethiopian women who fought against the Italian invasion in 1935, “is a beautiful and devastating work; of women holding together a world ripping itself apart” (Marlon James) and “a brilliant novel…compulsively readable” (Salman Rushdie).

An essayist, photographer, and documentarian as well as a novelist, Maaza was a recipient of the 2020 American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Literature Award.

Read her piece  in Lithub about the writing of The Shadow King, listen to an interview, or read one of our favorite essays by Maaza, “This is What The Journey Does” in the New York Review of Books.

Maaza was scheduled to teach a fiction workshop for the third time at Disquiet 2020, and she will, we hope, reprise that role at the rescheduled program in 2021.

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You can order The Shadow King here or anywhere books are sold.

 


Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida



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“The story of my curly hair,” says Mila, the narrator of Lisbon-based Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida’s debut novel That Hair, “intersects with the story of at least two countries and, by extension, the indirect story of the relations among several continents: a geopolitics.” Tin House Books published That Hair (Esse cabelo in Portuguese) this spring in an English translation by Eric M. B. Becker. You can read an excerpt at Lithub, or check out this thoughtful review from Anita Felicelli in the LA Review of Books. Djaimilia’s second novel, Luanda, Lisboa, Paraíso, came out (in Portuguese) in 2018 and her work has received multiple awards.

 

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Djaimilia was scheduled to speak for the fourth time at Disquiet 2020 (now Disquiet 2021). Order That Hair here or find it wherever books are sold.

 

Erica Dawson



Photo by Kevin Kelii
Photo by Kevin Kelii

Erica Dawson is “a poet fully aware of her place in time and its potential” (Jericho Brown). Her groundbreaking book-length poem When Rap Spoke Straight to God was published in 2018 by Tin House Books. She has been a regular on the Disquiet faculty since 2014 where, often in collaboration with Arthur Flowers, she has delivered some of the most affecting, virtuosic reading performances we’ve seen, which is saying something. Her essay “Americana,” just published in The Paris Review,  is required reading for the moment. Also, hear her read her poem “No, Kanye, it’s not LIKE we’re mentally in prison” at Poets.org.

 

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Erica was scheduled to teach her Form and Fantasy Workshop at Disquiet 2020 (now Disquiet 2021).

If you don’t already own a copy of When Rap Spoke Straight to God, you can find it here or at a bookstore near you.