Kwazman vwa is delighted to welcome editor, translator and author, Paula Anacaona. Anacaona will be discussing two of her graphic novels, Solitude la flamboyante and 1492: Anacaona, l’insurgée des Caraïbes. These works have this in common: they center two revolutionary women who rose against colonial powers and yet are often left out of history books. Paula Anacaona is also the founder of Editions Anacaona, dedicated to promoting transatlantic dialogues between francophone and Brazilian authors and intellectuals, through the publication of essays, novels, and children’s books. Our guest will be in conversation with Erika Serrato and Jennifer Boum Make, and the event is kindly sponsored by the Department of French and Francophone Studies at Georgetown University. Register below!
For its first event of 2023, Kwazman Vwa welcomes Michaëla Danjé. Danjé is a multi-talented Afro-Caribbean artist with Guadeloupean roots. In addition to writing, rapping, and creating music beats, she is a founding member of Cases Rebelles, an anti-authoritarian collective of creators, thinkers and social activists. The collective’s approach, which they define as PanAfroRevolutionary, unfolds via multiple paths, including books, a socially engaged podcast, and cultural events. In 2021, Cases Rebelles published AfroTrans, a rich volume of essays, interviews, poems and short fictions designed as an open space for Black trans artists, activists and intellectuals to tell their own stories on their own terms, away from the archival eye. Danjé will be discussing AfroTrans as well as Cases Rebelles’ current and future projects with Kwazman Vwa’s Jocelyn Sutton Franklin and Corine Labridy. The interview will be in French via zoom. This event is generously sponsored by the Francophone, Italian, & Germanic Studies Department at the University of Pennsylvania. Register below.
We are beyond honored to welcome Fabienne Kanor and Lynn Palermo, who will be discussing the translation of Humus (UVA Press) published in 2020. Fabienne Kanor is a professor, an award-winning author, filmmaker, poet, and a translator as well, who has dedicated her life’s work to studying race and gender in France and the French-Speaking African diaspora. With each one of her projects, she carefully fills in the blanks of colonial history by telling untold or forgotten stories. Lynn Palermo is an award-winning translator and professor whose teaching often integrates translation. She received a National Endowment for the Arts Translation Grant to support her work on Humus, which was was short-listed for the National Translation Award for prose in 2021. Her translation endeavors stretch beyond literature, and include volunteering at United Nations-affiliated NGOs. Our very own Lucy Swanson and Jennifer Boum Make will moderate this conversation, in both French and English. Register at the form below to receive the zoom link.
Past, current and future projects
Our event will coincidence with the launch of Fabienne Kanor’s newest collection of trans-disciplinary essays, La poétique de la cale: Variations sur le bateau négrier (Rivages, 2022). She is also in the editing stages of her latest experimental docuseries titled Contes de la cale. Her other latest novel Louisianne, was published with Rivage in 2020. We also invite you to read her translation of Zora Neal Hurston’sBarracoon, the Story of the Last “Black Cargo“ (JC Lattès 2019).
Lynn Palermo’s translation works include a collection of short stories by French author Cyrille Fleischman, published in English under the title Destiny’s Repairman, and for which she and co-translator Catherine Zobal Dent received a French Voices award in 2016. Her short translations have appeared in journals such as Exchanges, Kenyon Review Online, and World Literature Today.
We are so proud to kick off this new season with Jeffrey Landon Allen and Kwazman Vwa’s very own Nathan Dize who will be talking translation shop and discussing their latest projects: Patrick Chamoiseau’s L’empreinte à Crusoe translated under the title Crusoe’s Footprint, and Kettly Mars’ Je suis vivant, translated as I Am Alive. Both works are forthcoming this fall with University of Virginia Press. They will be in conversation with another accomplished translator, Charly Verstraet.
Kwazman Vwa’s Nathan H. Dize, Erika Serrato and Jocelyn Sutton Franklin will host Haitian novelist, poet, and recipient of the Prix du rayonnement de la langue et de la littérature françaises, Emmelie Prophète. Prophète is the author of seven novels, most recently of Les Villages de Dieu (2020), which was awarded the 2021 Prix Fètkann/Maryse Condé as a work of memory that defends human dignity, the 2022 Prix Carbet des Lycéens for the best Caribbean novel, and it was also a finalist for the 2021 Prix Ivoire for literature of the African Diaspora. In January 2022, her 2008 debut Le Testament des solitudes was published in English under the title, Blue (translated by Tina Kover, Amazon Crossing). We are delighted to have Emmelie Prophète with us to discuss her work, literature, life, and so much more. Our conversation will be held in French via zoom. Register below for the link.
For our next conversation, we are switching gears a little bit by welcoming Agnès Cornélie, the founder of Librairie Calypso, a bookstore that opened its doors in Paris in 2020. A native of Guadeloupe, Cornélie created a space exclusively dedicated to celebrating literatures from all French Outre-Mer regions as well as the broader Caribbean. She will talk to us about the latest books to make it on her shelves and what it’s like to be the first Caribbean bookstore in Paris. Our esteemed colleagues Jennifer Boum Make and Lucy Swanson will welcome her for this conversation, which will be held in French via zoom. Register below to receive the link.
We are honored to start the new year with Haitian poet, playwright and novelist Jean D’Amérique, whose name has been on many minds lately. Since his first poetry collection, Petite fleur du ghetto (Atelier Jeudi Soir) published in 2015, he has collected numerous awards, including most recently the Prix Apollinaire Découverte 2021, for Atelier du silence (Cheyne), the Prix André Dubreuil premier roman 2021 for his novel Soleil à coudre (Actes Sud), and the Prix RFI for his play Opéra poussière. Hailed as a rising star of contemporary Haitian letters, his style has been described as urgent, ferocious, vital. Kwazman Vwa’s Jocelyn Sutton Franklin and Corine Labridy will be in dialogue with D’Amérique, and the conversation will be held via Zoom, in French. Please register below to receive the link.
Jean D’Amérique performs an excerpt from Cathédrale des cochons.
Head over here for more of Jean D’Amérique’s visual performances.
In the poem “citoyen de la république-fenêtre,” D’Amérique reflects on the way inhumane borders politics crush dreams and exacerbate the global health crisis, and what poetry can do about it.
We also invite you to read «Il n’y a qu’avec du sang que je peux remplir une page» — D’Amérique’s reaction to Haitian president Jovenel Moïse’s murder published in Libération in July 2021 or our colleague’s Nathan Dize’s excellent translation of it, published here.
Kwazman Vwa is delighted to partner up with UNC Chapel Hill’s Institute for the Study of the Americas and Department of Romance Studies for this conversation with Sergio Gutiérrez Negrón. Sergio Gutiérrez Negrón is the author of three novels and a collection of short stories. Palacio (2011) was a PEN Club de Puerto Rico finalist and Dicen que los dormidos (2014/2015) won the national prize Premio de Novela from the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña. He has published in international venues in either original or translated form, from Argentina to Turkey. He has won the Nuevas Voices prize at the Festival de la Palabra and his work has been recognized as part of Latinoamérica Viva at the Feria Internacional del Libro de Guadalajara in Mexico. He was voted into the Bogotá39, naming him one of the best 39 Latin American writers under 39 by the Hay Festival in 2017.
We are truly honored to be in conversation with Evelyne Trouillot, celebrated as one of the key figures of today’s Caribbean literary landscape. She will be discussing her latest novel, Désirée Congo (Educa Vision), set in Saint Domingue shortly before the final defeat of Napoleon and the proclamation of the independence of Haiti. With its innovative polyphonic narrative technique, this novel beautifully testifies to Trouillot’s unique talent for blending history and fiction, the intimate and the collective. Kwazman Vwa’s Lucy Swanson and Jennifer Boum Make will be welcoming her for this event, which will be held via Zoom, on November 1 at 5:30 PM EST | 2:30 PM PST. RSVP below to receive a link.
To start off this new season, we are grateful to be in conversation with the brilliant Myriam J. A. Chancy, who will discuss her latest novel, What Storm, What Thunder (Tin House), with our very own Nathan Dize. This gorgeous text masterfully intertwines the lives of survivors — and the afterlives of their loved ones — in the wake of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Edwidge Danticat has called this text “Sublime. A striking and formidable novel by one of our most brilliant writers and storytellers,” and we look forward to delving into it with the author, as we continue to make sense of the latest natural disaster that struck Haiti last August. Please note that this special event will be live on Instagram @kwazmanvwa.
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