Edem Awumey - literary conversation
Join us online for a literary discussion with Togolese author Edem Awumey in which we discuss his oeuvre Noces de coton (2022) in relation to the rest of his works! The author will be in conversation with Joëlle Vitiello, Professor and Chair of French and Francophone Studies Department at Macalester College. We will also welcome Stéphanie Leclerc-Audet, Project Manager at the Centre de la francophonie des Amériques.
This event will be in French.
This event is free and all are welcome! Registration is not required, but please consider registering and making a $10 donation to support our cultural programs like this one. Your support allows us to continue the presence of cultural programs which benefit our whole community.
about the author
Edem Awumey was born in Togo. After a few years spent in France where he published his first novel Port-Mélo which won the Grand Prix littéraire d’Afrique noire, he settled in Gatineau in 2005. In 2009, his second novel, Les pieds sales, was selected for the Prix Goncourt. Also published were Rose Déluge and Explication de la nuit. Descent into night, the English translation of Explication de la nuit, was awarded a Prix du gouverneur général du Canada in October 2018. Mina parmi les ombres tells the journey of an Afro-Quebecois photographer in the footsteps of his missing muse in an African country prey to the fury of religious fundamentalism. Noces de coton appeared in January 2022 and is intended, through a peasant revolt, to be a journey on the cotton road, from older times to those of “past” and modern slavery. Edem Awumey was also a lecturer in French-speaking literature at McGill University and the Université du Québec en Outaouais. Translated into several languages including English, Spanish, German and Italian, his books are largely set in the imaginary places of childhood, travel and memory.
Bibliographie
Fictions
Noces de coton, roman, Éditions du Boréal, janvier 2022, Prix Jacques Poirier.
Mina parmi les ombres, roman, Éditions du Boréal, automne 2018, finaliste Prix du gouverneur général du Canada 2019.
Explication de la nuit, roman, Éditions du Boréal, octobre 2013.
Rose déluge, roman, Montréal, Éditions du Boréal et Seuil, Paris, septembre 2011, finaliste Prix Ouest France Étonnants Voyageurs, 2012.
Les pieds sales, roman, Montréal, Éditions du Boréal et Seuil Paris, septembre 2009, sélection prix Goncourt, 2011.
Port-Mélo, roman, Paris, Gallimard, janvier 2006, Grand Prix Littéraire de l’Afrique noire.
Monographie
Tierno Monénembo, le roman de l’exil, essai, Berlin, WVB, octobre 2006.
about the speakers
Joëlle Vitiello, Professor and Chair of French and Francophone Studies, received her Ph.D. from Stanford University, her Diplôme d’études universitaires supérieures (D.E.U.G.) and License from Paris XIII in France. Her book publications include Elles écrivent des Antilles (Haiti, Guadeloupe, Martinique) (L’Harmattan, 1997), a co-edited special issue of Women In French Studies: Women at the Threshold of the XXIst Century: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (2003) and a co-authored book on La vie et les valeurs aux U.S.A with Claire Nacher (Paris: Editions Solar, Presses de la Cité, 1991.)
Stéphanie Leclerc-Audet has been Project Manager at the Center de la francophonie des Amériques since 2021. She is also responsible for the Rendez-vous littéraires program, which has brought together, since its beginnings in 2015, classes of students from across the continent with French-speaking authors from the Americas, for unforgettable literary encounters!
This event will be held thanks to the support of the Centre de la francophonie des Amériques and the Consulate of Canada in Minneapolis.
