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WASHINGTON, March 21 – Award-winning British author and journalist Diran Adebayo comes to Washington, DC this spring as the latest participant in an innovative residency program that stretches across disciplines as well as across universities.
From his home base at Georgetown University, Adebayo – author of the critically-acclaimed novels Some Kind of Black and My Once Upon a Time – will give guest lectures, conduct faculty and student workshops and perform public readings at schools and universities throughout Washington, including George Washington University, Howard University and the Duke Ellington School for the Arts. Topics will range from African American studies to poetry and short fiction.
Known for his stylish and provocative fiction, Adebayo often tackles sensitive issues of race and identity; his work has been described by critics as a continual interrogation and experimentation of what it means to be black in Britain today. He also writes on social and cultural issues for national UK newspapers ranging from The Guardian to The Daily Mail, where his perceptive commentary on British and black British contemporary culture have earned him a reputation as an insightful journalist.
Adebayo’s month-long visit to Washington is part of the British Council USA’s UK Writer-In-Residence Program, an ongoing initiative at major American universities that features some of Britain’s brightest emerging writers. Participants in the program make US campuses a hub for literary and educational activities as they spend a month with American students, teaching and contributing to campus and academic life as well as to the cultural life of their host city. Adebayo’s residency, a partnership between the British Council USA and several academic entities within Georgetown University (including the Humanities and Human Rights Initiative, Lannan Literary Programs, African American Studies Program and the Department of English), extends from March 13 to April 13, 2006.
His current engagements include:
Reading: “Think You Know Brit Lit? Think Again”
Tuesday, March 21 – 7:00PM
Georgetown University
McShain Lounge
Reading: “Some Kind of Black”
Thursday, March 23 – 8:00PM
George Washington University
Marvin Center, Third Floor Amphitheatre
Lecture/Reading: “Pretty Is the New Black”
Howard Symposium – Black British Aesthetics
Saturday, April 8 – 7:00PM
Howard University
Hilltop Lounge, Blackburn Center
Panel: “World Republic of Letters”
Lannan Symposium
Monday, April 10 – 4:15PM
Georgetown University
Gonda Theatre
Adebayo’s books include Some Kind of Black (Virago, 1996), which received a Saga Prize, Betty Trask Award, Author’s Club Best Novel of the Year Award and Writer’s Guild Award; and My Once Upon a Time (Picador, 2000), hailed by the Daily Telegraph as “a book that sings...by turns rhapsodic, exhilarating and poignant." In 2003, he co-edited New Writings 12 (Picador, 2004), an anthology that showcases modern British writing with poetry, short stories, excerpts from published and soon-to-be published novels, and non-fiction pieces. Adebayo is currently working on a screenplay, his third novel, The Ballad of Dizzy and Miss P and a book of essays titled Here is a Protest.
Born in London in 1968 to Nigerian parents, Adebayo studied law at Oxford University before working as journalist for London newspaper The Voice. He has also written for BBC TV and radio and been a columnist for the New Nation newspaper.
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ABOUT THE BRITISH COUNCIL USA: An arm of the United Kingdom's international organization for educational and cultural relations, the British Council USA increases recognition of the wide array of learning opportunities available in the UK and facilitates educational cooperation between the US and UK. The organization also showcases British creativity by introducing the American public to high-quality, groundbreaking artistic achievement, and highlights the UK's scientific innovation in disciplines ranging from biotechnology to planetary science. Through its work, the British Council USA endeavors to promote an image of the UK that is up-to-date, vibrant, in the vanguard of new thinking and fully representative of the country’s geographic and cultural diversity.
CONTACT: Stacy Hope
(202) 588-7849
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