- This event has passed.
Visiting Author – Uche Okonkwo in conversation with Timothy Schaffert – A Kind of Madness
April 18 @ 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Join us on April 18th as author Uche Okonkwo launches her new book A Kind of Madness, named a Most Anticipated Book of 2024 by Oprah Daily!
About the Book:
A teenage girl from a poor family is dazzled by her rich, vivacious friend, but as the friend’s behavior grows unstable and dangerous, she must decide whether to cover for her or risk telling the truth to get her the help she needs. A young woman and her mother bask in the envy of their neighbors when the woman receives an offer of marriage from the family of a doctor living in Belgium–though when the offer fails to materialize, that envy threatens to turn vicious, pitting them both against their community. And a lonely daughter finds herself wandering a village in eastern Nigeria in an ill-fated quest, struggling to come to terms with her mother’s mental illness.
In ten vivid, evocative stories set in contemporary Nigeria, Uche Okonkwo’s A Kind of Madness unravels the tensions between mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, best friends, siblings, and more, marking the arrival of an extraordinary new talent in fiction and inviting us all to consider the question: why is it that the people and places we hold closest are so often the ones that drive us to madness?
About the Author:
Uche Okonkwo’s stories have been published in A Public Space, One Story, Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2019, and Lagos Noir, among others. A former Bernard O’Keefe Scholar at Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and resident at Art Omi, she is a recipient of the George Bennett Fellowship at Phillips Exeter Academy and a Steinbeck Fellowship. Okonkwo grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, and is currently pursuing a creative writing PhD at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
About Timothy Schaffert:
Timothy Schaffert is the author of seven novels, most recently THE PERFUME THIEF and THE TITANIC SURVIVORS BOOK CLUB. His work has been recommended by the New York Times, the Washington Post, Oprah.com, People, NPR, NBC New York, and other media. He is the Adele Hall Professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and the co-editor/founder of Zero Street Fiction.