Chika Unigwe meets Diana Evans
Location
Category
Price
discount
Language
London and Antwerp: these cities form the backdrop of the novels, recently published in French, by Diana Evans and Chika Unigwe, two important writers with Nigerian roots. Unigwe spent many years in Flanders but now lives in the United States; the British Diana Evans will be crossing the Channel in April to spend a month at Passa Porta as writer-in-residence.
Both writers will read excerpts and talk to host Katrien Steyaert about common themes such as the African diaspora, generational differences and the impact of major events on individual lives.
Fata Morgana
First published in Dutch as Fata Morgana (2007), the novel On Black Sisters’ Street was Chika Unigwe's international breakthrough while she was still living in Belgium. It has now finally been translated into French and published by Éditions Globe. On Black Sisters’ Street tells the story of the women behind the windows of Antwerp’s Vingerlingstraat. These are not helpless victims, but women who made the wrong choice, blinded by hope. They gambled and lost. Or did they? On Black Sisters’ Street also shows how the human instinct for survival prevails even when all hope is lost.
Ordinary People
Diana Evans’s third novel is a compelling, intimate study of identity and parenthood. The book deals with the themes of sex and grief, friendship and ageing, and the fragile architecture of love in twenty-first century South London. Against the backdrop of Barack Obama’s historic election victory, two couples find themselves at a moment of reckoning, when they must choose between acceptance or change in their lives.
About the authors
Chika Unigwe (b. 1974) is a Nigerian-born Igbo author who writes in English and who lived in Belgium for many years. She holds a PhD from Leiden University and published her debut novel De Feniks in 2005 (released in English in 2007 as The Phoenix). She has received several literary awards, including the NLNG Prize for Literature for Fata Morgana. Chika Unigwe has been living in the United States since 2013. In 2019 she published Better Never Than Late, a gripping collection of short stories. In it she describes the unusual lives and relationships of a group of Nigerian immigrants who are trying to find their way in Belgium. She was a guest at the online edition of the Passa Porta Festival 2021, where she read a new story to us from her home in Atlanta, ‘A Hand Across Her Back’, set against the backdrop of the Covid pandemic in the American-Nigerian community.
Diana Evans (b. 1972 in London) is the daughter of British-Nigerian parents. She spent part of her childhood in Lagos. She became a dancer in Brighton, then a journalist, and in 2005 her debut novel 26A was published to critical acclaim (it won the Orange Award for New Writers). Her third novel, Ordinary People, is now also available in French. During her stay as a writer in residence at Passa Porta in April 2022 she will be working on a novel set in contemporary London following a group of interconnected characters, as well as an essay collection.
Org. Passa Porta, Éditions Globe
Picture Diana Evans © Nick Tucker
Picture Chika Unigwe © Koen Broos
Coming soon at
NLDead Ladies Show #11 in Antwerpen
In de elfde editie van ons café chantant brengt Gaea Schoeters een programma met o.a. Rachida Lamrabet, Anneleen Van Offel en Steven Van Ammel. Onderbelichte vrouwelijke kunstenaars en wetenschappers krijgen het spotlicht, met muzikale intermezzo’s door pianiste Lies Colman en zangeres Lieselot De Wilde.
Meet the author: Sheena Patel
I’m A Fan, British writer and director Sheena Patel’s debut novel about obsession, social media and power relations, put her on the map as one of the most exciting new voices in British literature. She will be interviewed by Sudanese-Australian writer Yassmin Abdel-Magied, who will be working on her new novel as writer in residence at Passa Porta in Brussels.
NLDead Ladies Show #11 in Oostende
In de elfde editie van ons café chantant brengt Gaea Schoeters een programma met o.a. Rachida Lamrabet, Anneleen Van Offel en Steven Van Ammel. Onderbelichte vrouwelijke kunstenaars en wetenschappers krijgen het spotlicht, met muzikale intermezzo’s door pianiste Lies Colman en zangeres Lieselot De Wilde.