This week, our Editors-at-Large take us around the world for book launches, book fairs, and literary prizes! From a former Police Commandant’s memoir in Kenya, to a “harrowing” new release in France, to a mobile poetry reading in New York City, read on to learn more!
Wambua Muindi, Editor-at-Large, Reporting from Kenya
On Saturday, April 6, Qwani launched Qwani 02 at Alliance Française Nairobi. Qwani, founded by Keith Ang’ana, is a youth initiative meant to promote literature among young writers and readers, and whose main annual event is the book launch. The launch also featured music performances and selected readings from the works that made the second project. The one-of-a-kind anthology is multilingual and features 72 stories from some 60 enthusiastic Kenyan young writers. Ranging from short stories to essays to poetry, the included pieces demonstrated some innovative skills in storytelling and writing. The event culminated in book signings, a cake cutting, and a speech cameo by Lexa Lubanga who highlighted the recent kickoff to the fifth edition of the Kenyan Readathon.
In other news, Omar Abdi Shurie, former Commandant of Administration Police Training College in Kenya, launched his memoir Beyond the Call of Duty at the Embakasi AP Training Centre on Thursday, April 18. His book continues a Kenyan tradition of men in uniform documenting their lives and bequeathing literary history with an archive of service in the disciplined forces. With a 45-year stint in Kenya’s law enforcement, Shurie offers a rare view into matters of security for a police unit that is—to the public mind—known for its corruption and brutality. The former Commandant documents a life that exemplifies the Kenyan dream; hailing from Mandera in marginal North Eastern Kenya, Shurie ultimately rose to head the police service, working to maintain law and order by providing leadership for law enforcement. This is what Shurie’s life story personified, and what his book represents—a Kenya that is still becoming.
Kathryn Raver, Assistant Managing Editor, reporting from France
Two weeks ago, over 100,000 people flocked to Paris for the third annual Festival du Livre de Paris. The festival hosted these crowds alongside hundreds of authors from around the world for three days of industry discussion and literary celebration. In the spirit of the upcoming Summer Olympics, there was even a “Grande Dictée des Jeux,” where over 2700 “spelling athletes” competed to transcribe a series of spoken texts in exchange for a medal and free entry to the festival.
Quebecois literature was at the festival’s forefront, with 42 authors in attendance. “It is the French language that will be in the spotlight,” said Francophonie Festival curator Valérie Senghor, “in its nuances and its inventiveness, from one continent to another.” The Prix littéraire France-Québec was awarded to Alain Beaulieu for Le refuge, alongside a number of other prizes celebrating Francophone literary accomplishments across borders and genres.
Francophone literature had its day on the other side of the ocean as well, when writer and translator Neige Sinno’s Triste tigre was awarded the 2023 US Goncourt Prize Selection on Sunday. Selected by a cohort of students from ten different United States universities, this prize, alongside the other International Goncourt Prize selections, is a gauge of the Prix Goncourt shortlist’s resonance with readers around the globe.
Triste tigre is a harrowing recount of Sinno’s childhood experiences of abuse. Jurors said Sinno’s work challenged them as readers and made them “question the world of literature.” This award is only one of several of the honors Triste tigre has received, including the Femina Prize and the Prix Littéraire Le Monde.
Sinno’s novel was shortlisted for the Prix Goncourt alongside Jean-Baptiste Andrea’s Veiller sur elle, Gaspard Koenig’s Humus, and Eric Reinhardt’s Sarah, Suzanne et l’écrivain. An English translation of Triste tigre is now on the way, to be published by Seven Stories Press in 2025.
Alan Mendoza Sosa, Editor-at-Large, reporting from the United States
The Organizing Committee of the Feria del libro de Chicago has announced the program for its fourth edition. This annual event has become one of the main champions of the New Latino Boom, a concept coined by writer Naida Saavedra to refer to the growing publication of literature in Spanish in the United States. The book fair will take place between May 2 and 4 and it will feature more than seventy panelists who are at the forefront of Spanish literature written in the United States. The event is funded with the institutional support of several universities and non-profits, among them The University of Chicago and The National Autonomous University of Mexico.
The opening panel at the fair will feature the writers Santiago Vaquera-Vasquez, Silvia Aguilar Zeleny, and Isabel Ibañez de la Calle, as well as the editor Maya Piña and the University of Chicago Professor Verónica Moraga. Titled “Violencia, frontera y muerte” (Violence, border, and death), this inaugural event will bring to the forefront an urgent discussion on migration and violence in the work of the featured authors. Their novels Basura (Aguilar Zeleny, Tránsito, 2022), Los ojos de mi padre (Ibañez de la Calle, Suburbano Ediciones, 2023), and Nocturno de frontera (Vaquera-Vasquez, Suburbano Ediciones, 2020) explore the impact of violence, community, and capitalist exploitation in the Mexico-United States border. As such, these books present critical and urgent narratives of life on cultural margins.
The eighth edition of the Festival Kerouac also announced its program. It will take place in New York City between May 1 and 5. The festival features multilingual events that break the boundaries between poetry, music, and performance, hosted by the Spanish poet Marcos de la Fuente in Mexico City, New York, and Vigo. This year’s New York edition will kick off at the legendary Bowery Poetry Club, featuring events by Bob Holman, Oriana Méndez, Kirmen Uribe, Nerea Arrieta, and María Medín Doce. After that, it will move to other venues, culminating in a “poet’s caravan”: a walking poetry reading from Washington Square Park to Central Park. The walk is an homage to the Beat Generation and also a passionate initiative to bring poetry to the streets.
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