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Nii-ayikwei-parkes
Nii Ayikwei Parkes
Peace-adzo-medie-
Peace Adzo Medie
Suzi-feay
Suzi Feay

Azúcar and Nightbloom

Nii Ayikwei Parkes and Peace Adzo Medie chaired Suzi Feay

Saturday, 23 March 2024

12:00pm

1 hour

Oxford Martin School: Seminar Room

£7 - £13.50

Poet, publisher and novelist Nii Ayikwei Parkes and novelist Peace Adzo Medie talk about their new works, Azúcar and Nightbloom.

Parkes’s Azúcar (sugar) is a magic realist story set on a fictional Caribbean island written in a style that is part novel and part poetry. It asks what price we have to pay to have a place called home. It follows Ghanaian-born, Caribbean-raised musician Yunior and Caribbean-American college student Emelina Santos, heiress of the Soñada dynasty, who first meet at a fiesta. Over the years they travel divergent journeys through history, music, myth and heartbreak. These journeys raise the question of what it means to belong to a place or to another person. Parkes is a British-Ghanaian writer who has won critical acclaim as a poet, novelist, broadcaster and children’s author. His novel, Tail of the Blue, was praised internationally and won France’s two main prizes for translated fiction, Prix Baudelaire and Prix Laure Bataillon. His poetry collection, The Geez, was shortlisted for the Walcott Prize and was a Poetry Book Society 2020 recommendation. He founded flipped eye publishing, which focuses on voices from the margins of British society, is the literature programmer for Brighton Festival and serves on the boards of World Literature Today and the AKO Caine Prize.

Nightbloom is Adzo Medie’s second novel. It takes a look at family, class and discrimination in Ghana and the US. Cousins Selasi and Akorfa are born on the same day in 1985 and grow up in a small Ghanaian town. Selasi starts to construct a wall around herself as they enter their teens and Akorfa soon no longer recognises her friend. Their paths cross again many years later when Akorfa is a successful woman working in international development in the US and Selasi is running a successful restaurant in Accra. One of Selasi’s staff is threatened by a corrupt minister and Selasi and Akorfa must overcome their differences and face the truth of what happened years ago. Medie’s first novel, His Only Wife, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, a New York Times Notable Book of 2020, and a Time Magazine Must-Read Book of 2020. She has held an Oxford-Princeton global leaders fellowship and is a lecturer in gender and politics at Bristol University.

Discussions are chaired by journalist and reviewer for the FT Suzi Feay.

The Telegraph Festival media partner University of Oxford European Union Supported by the Delegation of the European Union to the UK Bodleian Libraries Festival cultural partner Oxford Martin School Festival ideas partner Oxford Mathematics Spanish Embassy The Spanish Embassy: supporters of the programme of Spanish literature and culture Cervantes Institute, London The Cervantes Institute, London elBullifoundation Iberia British Airways Embassy of the Dominican Republic Embassy of the Dominican Republic Blackwell’s Festival on-site and online bookseller Sotheby’s Symington Wines of the Douro Valley Compassion in World Farming Pasture to Plate Oxford Business College Where learning meets opportunity: education partners of the festival Old Bank Hotel Five-star hotel partners of The Oxford Collection Old Parsonage Hotel Five-star hotel partners of The Oxford Collection Oxford Brookes University Oxford International Centre for Publishing Critchleys Accountants to the festival Confucius Institute Voltaire Foundation Felicity Bryan Associates Goldmoney Properties Princeton University Press Prestige publishing partner. Celebrating 25 years in Europe in 2024 Oxford University Department for Continuing Education Jewish Book Week Partner of Oxford Literary Festival Jim Mellon Miles Young Tim and Marion Stevenson Martin and Elise Becket Smith Ian and Carol Sellars David Isaac Mary and Cecil Quillen Supporters of the programme of American literature and culture Other donors Yale University Press London New College New College founded 1379 Exeter College Exeter College: college home of the festival. Founded 1314 Worcester College Worcester College founded 1714 Lincoln College Lincoln College founded 1427 Trinity College Trinity College founded 1555 Magdalen College Magdalen College founded 1458 Brasenose College Brasenose College founded in 1512 Reuben College Reuben College founded in 2019 Harris Manchester College Harris Manchester College founded 1893 Pusey House Founded 1884 New Dutch Writing Human Ecology Project MACROVegan Bear Ram Elk Festival Digital Strategy & Web Design Racalia Olive Oil Olive oil from Sicily Paul Bloomfield Ltd University of Oxford Alumni Office Alumni Office The Sheldonian Theatre Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies Oxford University Images Oxford University Images CAV Oxford The Litmus Partnership Schoolreaders Windrush Group The Oxford Times BBC Radio Oxford Local radio partner Conference Oxford Ox in a Box OX magazine

The Oxford Literary Festival sponsors, donors & partners

The Telegraph Festival media partner University of Oxford European Union Supported by the Delegation of the European Union to the UK Bodleian Libraries Festival cultural partner Oxford Martin School Festival ideas partner Oxford Mathematics Spanish Embassy The Spanish Embassy: supporters of the programme of Spanish literature and culture Cervantes Institute, London The Cervantes Institute, London elBullifoundation Iberia British Airways Embassy of the Dominican Republic Embassy of the Dominican Republic Blackwell’s Festival on-site and online bookseller Sotheby’s Symington Wines of the Douro Valley Compassion in World Farming Pasture to Plate Oxford Business College Where learning meets opportunity: education partners of the festival Old Bank Hotel Five-star hotel partners of The Oxford Collection Old Parsonage Hotel Five-star hotel partners of The Oxford Collection Oxford Brookes University Oxford International Centre for Publishing Critchleys Accountants to the festival Confucius Institute Voltaire Foundation Felicity Bryan Associates Goldmoney Properties Princeton University Press Prestige publishing partner. Celebrating 25 years in Europe in 2024 Oxford University Department for Continuing Education Jewish Book Week Partner of Oxford Literary Festival Jim Mellon Miles Young Tim and Marion Stevenson Martin and Elise Becket Smith Ian and Carol Sellars David Isaac Mary and Cecil Quillen Supporters of the programme of American literature and culture Other donors Yale University Press London New College New College founded 1379 Exeter College Exeter College: college home of the festival. Founded 1314 Worcester College Worcester College founded 1714 Lincoln College Lincoln College founded 1427 Trinity College Trinity College founded 1555 Magdalen College Magdalen College founded 1458 Brasenose College Brasenose College founded in 1512 Reuben College Reuben College founded in 2019 Harris Manchester College Harris Manchester College founded 1893 Pusey House Founded 1884 New Dutch Writing Human Ecology Project MACROVegan Bear Ram Elk Festival Digital Strategy & Web Design Racalia Olive Oil Olive oil from Sicily Paul Bloomfield Ltd University of Oxford Alumni Office Alumni Office The Sheldonian Theatre Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies Oxford University Images Oxford University Images CAV Oxford The Litmus Partnership Schoolreaders Windrush Group The Oxford Times BBC Radio Oxford Local radio partner Conference Oxford Ox in a Box OX magazine