Fiction reading with Chinelo Okparanta

August 20, 2013  


Chinelo Okparanta

Chinelo Okparanta
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WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. —The 2013-2014 Purdue University Literary Reading Series presents a reading with fiction writer and visiting professor Chinelo Okparanta at 7:30 p.m. on Aug. 27.

This event, which is free and open to the public, will be in Krannert Auditorium, Room 140. It is sponsored by the Department of English and the Creative Writing Program.

Chinelo will read from "Happiness, Like Water," her new short story collection. Paul Harding, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Tinkers," calls the book, "astonishing. Her narrators render their stories with such strength and intimacy, such lucidity and composure, that in each and every case the truths of their lives detonate deep inside the reader's heart, with the power and force of revelation."

Okparanta was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. She received her bachelor's of science degree from Pennsylvania State University, her master's degree from Rutgers University, and her MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She is the author of "America," which was shortlisted for the 2013 Caine Prize for African Writing. She has been nominated for a United States Artists Fellowship in Literature, and her collection of short stories, "Happiness, Like Water" was long-listed for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. This fall she joined Purdue's Creative Writing Department as a visiting professor.

News Service: Amy Patterson Neubert, 765-494-9723, apatterson@purdue.edu

Source: Rebecca McKanna, visiting writers series coordinator, 319-400-9163, rmckanna@purdue.edu

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