Global Lunchbox Podcast with Professor Chris Abani: poet, novelist, playwright, essayist & scholar

This episode of the Global Lunchbox podcast features a wide-ranging conversation with poet, novelist, playwright, and essayist Chris Abani, who is Director of the Program of African Studies, Professor of English and Director of Graduate Studies for the Litowitz Graduate Program in Creative Writing (MFA+MA) at Northwestern University.

Born to an Igbo father and English mother, Abani was raised in Afikpo, Nigeria, where he says he was steeped in a “worldview of convergence and simultaneity.” A novelist, poet, essayist, screenwriter and playwright, Abani draws upon diverse fields such as African poetics, world literature, history, music, architecture and philosophy and religion in his scholarship and creative production.

His books of prose include The Secret History of Las Vegas (2014), Song For Night (2007), The Virgin of Flames (2007), Becoming Abigail (2006), GraceLand (2004), and Masters of the Board (1985). His poetry collections are Sanctificum (2010), There Are No Names for Red (2010), Feed Me The Sun – Collected Long Poems (2010), Hands Washing Water (2006), Dog Woman (2004), Daphne’s Lot (2003), and Kalakuta Republic (2001).

The Global Lunchbox, hosted by the Weinberg College Center for International & Area Studies at Northwestern University, features conversations with scholars in the social sciences and humanities about their current research on a range of critical global issues.