Teju Cole, a Nigerian-American writer, art historian, photographer and cultural critic, will speak on “The Miracle of Our Shared Space,” Monday, April 18, at 7 p.m., in Ice Auditorium in Melrose Hall at Linfield College.
In addition to the lecture, he will also hold a conversation with students and faculty Tuesday, April 19, from 2 to 4 p.m. in 222 T.J. Day Hall.
Cole is an interdisciplinary Nigerian-American writer, art historian, photographer and cultural critic. He is the distinguished Writer-in-Residence at Bard College. His first book, a novella titled “Every Day is for the Thief,” was named a book of the year by the New York Times, the Globe and Mail, NPR and the Telegraph.
His second book, “Open City,” won the prestigious PEN/Hemingway award, the New York City Book Award for Fiction, the Rosenthal Award for the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was short listed for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Cole also regularly writes for the New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic, Granta and many other prominent journals both within America and abroad.
Cole’s work is largely inspired by Africa. He was born in Michigan, raised in Nigeria and then returned to the United States as an adult. With one foot in African/Nigerian culture and the other foot in American culture, Cole works frequently bridging the gap and the divide between these two continents.
Cole’s next book is “Known and Strange Things,” a collection of essays on art, literature, photography and politics, which will be published this fall. He is also working on “Radio Lagos,” a non-fictional narrative of contemporary Lagos (Nigeria).
The lecture is free and open to the public and sponsored by Francophone African Studies Program, Black Student Union, Department of Modern Languages, Department of Political Sciences, English Department, Academic Affairs, Nicholson Library, International Programs Office, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, and the Diversity Committee. For more information contact Marie Noussi, mnoussi@linfield.edu, 503-883-2231 or Nick Buccola, nbuccol@linfield.edu.
It is funded, in part, by a grant awarded by Linfield’s Diversity Committee to explore and support the intellectual and research interests of students, faculty and staff in areas of diversity and inclusion, promoting courageous conversations about diversity and lived experiences across our college and communities. For more information about those grants, contact Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt, rdutt-b@linfield.edu.
