This September, we welcome Archipelago authors Frankétienne and Scholastique Mukasonga to the U.S. for a series of events in New York and California.
Both authors will be visiting the U.S. in celebration of the release of two new Archipelago titles: Scholastique Mukasonga’s Our Lady of the Nile and Frankétienne’s Ready to Burst. We are thrilled to welcome them and to announce a series of lively and thought-provoking events with Scholastique and Frankétienne this upcoming September.
Tour Schedule
Thursday, September 18th
- An Evening with Scholastique Mukasonga and Scott Esposito at City Lights @ 7:00 pm (City Lights Booksellers & Publishers, 261 Columbus Ave, San Francisco, CA)
Friday, September 19th
- Scholastique Mukasonga on Notre-Dame du Nil & the Future of Rwanda @ 5:00 pm (UC Berkeley Library of French Thought, 4229 Dwinelle Hall, Berkeley, CA)
- Haiti Cultural Exchange & Brooklyn Public Library Event with Frankétienne, Kaiama L. Glover and Madison Smartt Bell @ 7:00 pm (FiveMyles Gallery, 558 St. Johns Place, Brooklyn, NY)
Sunday, September 21st
- Scholastique Mukasonga at the Brooklyn Book Festival @ 11:00 am (Brooklyn Borough Hall Media Room, 209 Joralemon Street, Brooklyn, NY)
- Frankétienne at the Brooklyn Book Festival @ 1:00 pm (St. Francis College Auditorium, 180 Remsen Street, Brooklyn, NY)
Monday, September 22nd
- Cultural Services of the French Embassy “Words and Conflicts” Event with Scholastique Mukasonga & Jean-Godefroy Bidima @ 7:00 pm (McNally Jackson, 52 Prince Street, New York, NY)
Tuesday, September 23rd
- Our Lady of the Nile Launch Party & Conversation with Bhakti Shringarpure @ 7:00 pm (Dumbo Sky, 10 Jay Street #902, Brooklyn, NY)
Born in Rwanda in 1956, Scholastique Mukasonga experienced from childhood the violence and humiliation of the ethnic conflicts that shook her country. In 1960, her family was displaced to the polluted and under-developed Bugesera district of Rwanda. She settled in France in 1992, two years before the brutal genocide of the Tutsi. In the aftermath, Mukasonga learned that 27 of her family members had been massacred. Twelve years later, Gallimard published her autobiographical account Inyenzi ou les Cafards, followed by La femme aux pieds nus in 2008 and L’Iguifou in 2010, all widely praised. Her first novel, Our Lady of the Nile, won the Renaudot Prize, the Ahamadou Kourouma Award, and the French Voices Grand Prize.
Considered by many to be the father of Haitian letters, Frankétienne is a prolific poet, novelist, visual artist, playwright, and musician. He has devoted much of his life to fighting political oppression and, in 2009, was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. In 2010, the French government named him a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. “I am not afraid of chaos,” Frankétienne explains, “because chaos is the womb of light and life.”