Chris Abani
 Chris Abani, Nigerian novelist, poet, screenwriter, and playwright. He is also a Northwestern faculty member in the English Department, where he teaches creative writing. |
 The Secret History of Las Vegas: |
| What does Las Vegas mean to you? I think that Las Vegas for me is really this remarkable notion of freedom, the idea that you have absolute permission to do whatever you want, but then I think permission has to be so tightly policed so that no real incident happens. It’s all about, ‘Whatever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,’ but not very much ever tends to happen in Vegas, despite movies like The Hangover. But the more I started to research the history of Las Vegas, the more blown away I was – the idea that there were nuclear tests six miles from the city center and that casinos used to hold parties for people to watch the explosion. All the time, Area 51 is not far away, and all these secret government tests, and I thought, ‘It’s kind of amazing that it’s called sin city’ – this place that’s almost like the unconscious gone crazy is also the place where all of these strange UFO sightings and desert people live. It’s such a beautiful landscape for any writer, and I started to think about it as a possible meeting place for all people. If you go to Vegas in the winter, there are very few Americans there, and by Americans I mean Americans who celebrate Christmas. They’re all back home doing Christmas. And so typically it’s full of Buddhists from the Far East and so it seems like there’s always a different group of people in Vegas at different times of the year. Las Vegas is very much an international city now, and people come from Dubai to gamble, and so I started to think of it almost as this crossroads of the world. Gentry, Clayton. “5 Questions with Chris Abani.” North by Northwestern, 11 February 2014. |
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
 Half of a Yellow Sun. The 2013 movie Half of a Yellow Sun is based on the historical novel of the same name by the Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. |
 Americanah. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013. |
Doreen Baingana
Doreen Baingana, Ugandan short story writer. |
 Gamba the Gecko Wants to Drum. |
 My Fingers are Stuck! |
 Tropical Fish. |
NoViolet Bulawayo
 NoViolet Bulawayo, Zimbabwean author of We Need New Names: A Novel. |
 We Need New Names: A Novel. |
| We Need New Names tells the story of Darling, a young Zimbabwean girl who emigrates to the United States. Michiko Kakutani praises NoViolet Bulawayo’s “gift for pictorial language” and her ability to create “snapshots of Zimbabwe that have the indelible color and intensity of a folk art painting in her New York Times review. Meanwhile, Annalise Quinn of National Public Radio writes that “We Need New Names is nearly as incisive about the American immigrant experience as it as about the failings of Mugabe’s regime [in Zimbabwe].” Ditkowsky, Alexis. “1book140’s December Read: We Need New Names.” The Atlantic. 5 December 2014. |
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Teju Cole
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 Open City. |
| Ever since he moved to New York, author Teju Cole Knew that he wanted to write about the city, with general structure of a character walking and walking around the metropolis and making discoveries. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he says, he suddenly found the freedom to write the story. The result is Open City, a debut novel that has met with high praise and is being called a new landmark in post Sept. 11 fiction. NPR Books, 13 February 2011. |
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Helon Habila
 Oil on Water. |
“I find myself drawn to subjects of justice and injustice, power and powerlessness,” [Habila] says. “I tend to focus on ordinary individuals and their capacity to be complex, and even heroic, to rise above their limits and expectations set for them by society.” Charles, Ron. “Nigerian Writer Helon Haliba Wins a Windham Campbell Prize.” The Washington Post. 27 February 2015. |
Alain Mabanckou
 Alain Mabanckou, French/Congolese novelist, journalist, poet, and professor at the University of California Los Angeles. |
 African Psycho. |
Maaza Mengiste
 Maaza Mengiste, Ethiopian-American writer and photographer. She is also the Spring Quarter 2015 Visiting Writer in Residence in the Center for the Writing Arts at Northwestern. |
 Beneath the Lion’s Gaze. |
Helen Oyeyemi
 Helen Oyeyemi, British/Nigerian author of Boy, Snow, Bird and other acclaimed titles. |
 Boy, Snow, Bird. |
| “Still, the greatest joy of reading Oyeyemi will always be style: jagged and capricious at moments, lush and rippled at others, always singular, like the voice-over of a fever dream. Sometimes literally: ‘I dreamt of rats. They spoke to me. They called me “cousin.” And I dreamt of being caught, dreamt of sedative smoke, tar, glue, and strange lights the size of the sun, switching from red to green so fast I had no time to react.’ Tell a dream, lose a reader, said Henry James, but it’s hard not to be on board with Oyeyemi when even an awful nightmare finds itself adorned with such lexical magnificence.” Khakpour, Porochista. “White Lies: ‘Boy, Snow, Bird,’ by Helen Oyeyemi.” The New York Times. 27 February 2014. |
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Taiye Selasi
 Taiye Selasi, writer born in London of Nigerian and Ghanaian origin. |
 Ghana Must Go. |