Mia Couto in conversation with Anderson Tepper
Mia Couto in conversation with Anderson Tepper
Saturday May 4
powerHouse Arena
37 Main Street, Brooklyn
7 p.m.
Admission is free.
Biblioasis Proudly presents MIA COUTO Best-selling Author of SLEEPWALKING LAND &
THE TUNER OF SILENCES In Conversation with ANDERSON TEPPER.
Join Biblioasis for the New York launch of Mia Couto’s The Tuner of Silences, recently hailed as “a true tour-de-force of modern African writing” (Words Without Borders) and “the biggest event in international literature this season” (L’Humanité). Couto, the first African author to receive the Latin Union Award of Romance Languages and the best-selling author of 25 books, has been translated into 20 languages worldwide. The evening will feature a reading and signing as well as an on-stage interview.
“To understand what makes António “Mia” Emílio Leite Couto special—even extraordinary—we have to loosen our grip on the binary that distinguishes between “the West” and “Africa.” Couto is “white” without not being African, and as an “African” writer he’s one of the most important figures in a global Lusophone literature that stretches across three continents.” —THE NEW INQUIRY, April 2013
About MIA COUTO
Mia Couto, born in Mozambique in 1955, dropped out of medical school in his teens to join the struggle against Portuguese colonialism. When Mozambique became independent in 1975, Couto was named Director of Information in the revolutionary government, and served as editor of two newspapers. In the 1980s he returned to university to study environmental biology. Two of Couto’s novels have been made into feature films and his books have been bestsellers in Africa, Europe and
South America. In 2002, a committee of African literary critics named his novel Sleepwalking Land one of the twelve best African books of the twentieth century. His novels have been awarded major literary prizes in Mozambique, Portugal, Brazil and Italy.
About ANDERSON TEPPER
Anderson Tepper is on the staff of Vanity Fair and has written on books and authors for a variety of publications, including the New York Times Book Review, Tin House, Words without Borders, and Paris Review Daily. He is also on advisory committees for both the Brooklyn Book Festival’s international stage and PEN World Voices, where he has moderated conversations with authors such as Nuruddin Farah, Ben Okri, Petina Gappah, and José Eduardo Agualusa.