Please join us to celebrate Zambia’s Namwali Serpell, winner of the 2015 Caine Prize for African Writing, described as Africa’s leading literary award, for her short story entitled “The Sack” from Africa39 (Bloomsbury, London, 2014).

‍Namwali Serpell was born in Zambia in 1980. Her first published story, “Muzungu,” was selected for the 2009 Best American Short Stories and shortlisted for the 2010 Caine Prize for African Writing. Her writing has appeared in Tin House, The Believer, n+1, McSweeney’s (forthcoming), Bidoun, and Callaloo.

‍She is an associate professor in the University of California, Berkeley English department and her first book of literary criticism, Seven Modes of Uncertainty, was published in 2014.

‍Shannon Jackson is the Associate Vice Chancellor for the Arts and Design, Director of the Arts Research Center, Professor of Rhetoric and of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies, and the Hadidi Chair in the Humanities at U.C. Berkeley. Currently she is creating an edited collection of keywords in contemporary art and performance with the Pew Center for Art and Heritage. Jackson has received many honors, including a 2015 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship.

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