Lannan Center Podcast

On January 25th, 2022, the Lannan Center presented a reading and talk featuring poets Valzhyna Mort and Michael Prior. Moderated by Carolyn Forché. About Valzhyna Mort Valzhyna Mort is a poet and translator born in Minsk, Belarus. She is the author of three poetry collections, Factory of Tears (Copper Canyon Press 2008), Collected Body (Copper Canyon Press 2011) and, mostly recently, Music for the...

On November 30th, 2021, the Lannan Center presented a reading and talk featuring author Tope Folarin Introduction by Aminatta Forna. About Tope Folarin Tope Folarin is a Nigerian-American writer based in Washington, D.C. He won the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2013 and was shortlisted once again in 2016. He was also recently named to the Africa39 list of the most promising African writers un...

On November 9th, 2021, the Lannan Center presented a reading and talk featuring author Aminatta Forna and editor John Freeman. Introduction by David Gewanter. About Aminatta Forna Aminatta Forna was born in Scotland, raised in Sierra Leone and Great Britain and spent periods of her childhood in Iran, Thailand and Zambia. She is the award-winning author of the novels Happiness , The Hired Man , The...

On October 26th, 2021, the Lannan Center presented a reading and talk featuring Douglas Stuart and Maureen Corrigan. Introduction by Aminatta Forna. About Douglas Stuart Douglas Stuart is a Scottish-American author. His debut novel, Shuggie Bain , won the Booker Prize. It is published by Grove Atlantic in the US and Picador in the UK, and is to be translated into thirty-four languages. He wrote Sh...

On October 12th, 2021, the Lannan Center presented a reading and talk featuring poet Jericho Brown. Introduction by Carolyn Forché. About Jericho Brown Jericho Brown is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Brown’s first book, Ple...

On September 21st, 2021, the Lannan Center presented a reading and talk featuring Sofi Oksanen. Moderated by Lannan Center Director, Aminatta Forna. Cosponsored by the Georgetown Medical Humanities Initiative , the Georgetown Humanities Initiative , the Global and Comparative Literature Program , the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics ,  the Women's and Gender Studies Program , an...

On April 20, 2021, we held a virtual reading and conversation with Irenosen Okojie, winner of the 2020 AKO Caine Prize for African Writing. Moderated by Prof. Lahra Smith, Director of African Studies Program. Irenosen Okojie is a Nigerian-British writer. She is the winner of the 2020 AKO Caine Prize For Fiction for her story, “Grace Jones.” Her debut novel Butterfly Fish won a Betty Trask award an...

On April 13, 2021 the Lannan Center presented a Crowdcast webinar featuring  Carolyn Forché. Moderated by Penn Szittya of the Lannan Foundation. Carolyn Forché's first volume of poetry, Gathering the Tribes , winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize, was followed by The Country Between Us, The Angel of History , and Blue Hour. In March, 2020, Penguin Press published her fifth collecti...

On March 18, 2021 the Lannan Center presented a Crowdcast webinar on the subject The View From Abroad: "What Can America Learn from the Experience of Other Nations at a Time of Crisis?" This was the launch event of "Beyond Identity: Reimagining the American Narrative," the Lannan Seminars at Georgetown University, and featured Aleksandar Hemon, Monica McWilliams, Ebrahim Rasool...

On March 18, 2021 the Lannan Center presented a Crowdcast webinar featuring author Salman Rushdie, as part of "THIS LAND" the 2021 Lannan Center Symposium. Moderated by BBC's Razia Iqbal. About Salman Rushdie Salman Rushdie is the author of fourteen novels, most recently Quichotte , The Golden House , and Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights . His book Midnight’s Children...

On March 16, 2021 the Lannan Center presented a Crowdcast webinar featuring Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, as part of "THIS LAND" the 2021 Lannan Center Symposium. Moderated by poet Carolyn Forché. About Joy Harjo In 2019, Joy Harjo was appointed the 23rd United States Poet Laureate, the first Native American to hold the position. Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Harjo is an internationally known awar...

On February 9, 2021  the Lannan Center presented a Crowdcast webinar featuring  Shane McCrae and Vievee Francis. Introductions by Lannan Fellows Joshua Kim and Renny Simone. Moderated by Carolyn Forché. Shane McCrae is the author of seven books of poetry, including Sometimes I Never Suffered (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020); In the Language of My Captor (Wesleyan University Press, 2017), which wa...

On January 26, 2021 the Lannan Center presented a Crowdcast webinar featuring Javier Zamora and Natalie Scenters-Zapico. Introductions by Lannan Fellows Dennese Mae Javier and Nohora Arrieta Fernandez. Moderated by Carolyn Forché. Javier Zamora was born in La Herradura, El Salvador in 1990. His father fled El Salvador when he was a year old; and his mother when he was about to turn five. Both pare...

On November 17, 2020, the Lannan Center presented a Crowdcast webinar featuring Carmen Giménez Smith and José Olivarez. Introduced by Aminatta Forna and moderated by  English Department Chair Ricardo Ortíz and Professor Elizabeth Velez.  Carmen Giménez Smith is most recently the author of Be Recorder (2020), which was shortlisted for both the National Book Award and the PEN Open Book Award. Her 20...

On October 20, 2020, the Lannan Center presented a Crowdcast webinar featuring Valeria Luiselli in conversation with Aminatta Forna. Introduced by Lakshmi Krishnan.  Valeria Luiselli 's recent novel, Lost Children Archive was a finalist for the 2019 Kirkus Prize for Fiction and long-listed for the 2019 Booker Prize, and has been named a best book of 2019 by Entertainment Weekly , Vanity Fair...

On September 29, 2020 the Lannan Center presented a Crowdcast webinar featuring Susan Choi in Conversation with Maureen Corrigan. Introduction by Aminatta Forna. Susan Choi is most recently the author of Trust Exercise (2019), which won the National Book Award for fiction, and her first book for children, Camp Tiger (2019). Her first novel, The Foreign Student , won the Asian-American Literary Awa...

On May 18, 2020, author and 2019 Booker Prize Winner Bernardine Evaristo was interviewed by NPR's Maureen Corrigan (The Nicky and Jamie Grant Distinguished Professor of the Practice in Literary Criticism at Georgetown University) via Zoom. We apologize for the quality of the sound during the interview, which was made under COVID-19 conditions. Music: Quantum Jazz — " Orbiting A Distant P...

On February 25, 2020, the Lannan Center presented a reading and talk featuring poets John Murillo and Tina Chang. Introduction by Patricia Guzman. John Murillo is the author of the poetry collections Up Jump the Boogie (2010), which was a finalist for both the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and the PEN Open Book Award, and Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry , forthcoming from Four Way Books in 2020. His wor...

On February 18, 2020, the Lannan Center presented "Power and Language," a special event with Caine Prize winning writer Lesley Nneka Arimah. Welcome: Aminatta Forna (Director of the Lannan Center, Georgetown University). Introduction: Scott Taylor (Director of the African Studies Program, Georgetown University). Lesley Nneka Arimah is the author of “Skinned,” winner of the 2019 Caine Pri...

On January 21, 2020, the Lannan Center presented a reading and talk featuring poet Terrance Hayes. Terrance Hayes is the author of American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassins (Penguin, 2018), a finalist for the 2018 National Book Award in Poetry; To Float In The Space Between: Drawings and Essays in Conversation with Etheridge Knight (Wave, 2018); How to Be Drawn (2015); Lighthead (2010), wh...

On December 5, 2019, the Lannan Center presented a special event featuring author Juan Gabriel Vásquez. This event was introduced by Aminatta Forna and moderated by Marie Arana. Juan Gabriel Vásquez is the author of numerous novels, including The Shape of the Ruins (2018), which was shortlisted for the 2019 International Man Booker Prize; Reputations (2013), a New York Times Best Book of the Year;...

On September 24, 2019, the Lannan Center presented a reading and talk featuring poets Ilya Kaminsky and John James. Introduced by Aminatta Forna. Ilya Kaminsky is the author of Deaf Republic (Graywolf, 2019) and Dancing In Odessa (Tupelo, 2004). He has also co-edited and co-translated many other books, including Ecco Anthology of International Poetry (Harper Collins) and Dark Elderberry Branch: Po...

On April 23, 2019, the Lannan Center presented a reading and talk featuring poet Nikky Finney. Introduced by Aminatta Forna. Nikky Finney is the author of the poetry collections Head Off & Split (TriQuarterly Books, 2011), winner of the 2011 National Book Award; The World Is Round (InnerLight Publishing, 2003); Rice (Sister Vision, 1995); and On Wings Made of Gauze (W. Morrow, 1985). She has b...