International Reading Series: Accessing the Unknowable with Emmanuel Iduma

For the second installment of this year’s International Reading Series, City of Asylum welcomes Emmanuel Iduma for a reading of his latest memoir. The story follows Emmanuel as he returns to Nigeria to seek out the truth of his uncle who disappeared during the Nigerian Civil War. On his journey, Emmanuel reconnects with relatives and traverses cities, scouring both memories and monuments to fill the blank spaces neglected by history. It is a story of grief and loss, of political reckoning, and of navigating life when so much of what has shaped it has become intangible. 

Curator Note: “Nigerian writer Emmanuel Iduma’s debut book, A Stranger’s Pose, was a remarkable blend of travelogue, musings, poetry, and photography; a voyage around various African cities—from Dakar to Douala, Khartoum to Casablanca—filtered through Emmanuel’s rare and perceptive gaze. His new work, I Am Still With You: A Reckoning with Silence, Inheritance and History, explores a deeper and more personal vision of his own country and the intimate legacies of the Nigerian Civil War of the late 1960s.”  —Anderson Tepper, City of Asylum Advisory Board Member & Curator of International Literature

You can purchase your own copy of Emmanuel’s book, I Am Still With You: A Reckoning with Silence, Inheritance, and History, at City of Asylum Bookstore. 

About The Author:

Emmanuel Iduma, born in 1989, is a writer who trained as a lawyer in Nigeria. He is the author of the travelogue A Stranger’s Pose (Cassava Republic Press, 2018), which was longlisted for the 2019 Ondaatje Prize. He has written for Granta, n+1, The New York Review of Books, BOMB, Brooklyn Rail, Aperture, Guernica, and others, and he has received many grants and awards, including the Windham-Campbell Prize. Iduma has an MFA in Art Writing from the School of Visual Arts, New York City and taught there for several years before moving to Lagos, Nigeria.

About the Moderator: 

Anderson Tepper is co-chair of the International Committee at the Brooklyn Book Festival and is the host of a global author series with the Brooklyn Public Library. He has served on the advisory council of the PEN World Voices Festival and was guest curator of the Emergency World Voices Congress of Writers at the United Nations in May. Formerly of Vanity Fair, he writes on books and authors for a variety of publications, including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and World Literature Today. Anderson Tepper serves on the City of Asylum Advisory Board.

About Your Visit: 

The in-house restaurant 40 North will be closed, but a cash wine bar will be available.