Okechukwu Nzelu (photo: Alex Douglas)

Please join us for an online reading with the Manchester-based writer Okechukwu Nzelu!

Monday, 29 November 2021
17h Berlin time, 4pm UK time
on zoom (registration details below)

His debut novel, The Private Joys of Nnenna Maloney (Dialogue Books), won a Betty Trask Award. It was also shortlisted for the Polari First Book Prize and the Desmond Elliott Prize as well as longlisted for the Portico Prize, “a £10,000 biennial award for the book that best evokes the spirit of the North of England”. In 2021, it was selected for the Kingston University Big Read. And here is some praise about the book I enjoyed:

“Nzelu writes with a witty confidence rarely seen in debut fiction. Smart, serious and entertaining, I expect this book to have wide appeal and for this writer to go far” Bernardine Evaristo

“A vivid picture of people seeking security and identity in the maze of modern-day England. This is fiction as sculpture: skilfully paring down a scene to reveal the shape of the pain hidden within. Jonathan’s search for validation, and Nnenna’s drive to create an identity for herself, are moving and relatable stories, intimately told” The Guardian

“Okechukwu Nzelu has effortlessly captured the tricky nuance of life, love, race, sexuality and familial relationships . . . I haven’t been able to put it down” Candice Carty-Williams

His second novel, Here Again Now, will be published by Dialogue Books in March 2022 (link to the book page on dialogue book’s website).

He is a regular contributor to Kinfolk magazine, a Lecturer in Creative Writing at Lancaster University and recipient of a Northern Writers’ Award from New Writing North. This summer, he contributed his short story “Arrival” to Pride at Canary Wharf, “a fictional story that celebrates the LGBTQIA+ community while also delving into and addressing the challenges faced by those parts of this community.” (link to Pride at Canary Wharf)

So join us for Okechukwu Nzelu’s online reading on 29 November! (where you’ll also have the opportunity to ask our guest questions)

All are welcome!

Please register for the online reading at: events.gbz@hu-berlin.de

The event is a cooperation between the Literary Field Kaleidoscope,
the Centre for British Studies (www.gbz.hu-berlin.de),
and Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf (https://www.anglistik5.hhu.de/en).