KEMPADOO, Oonya

KEMPADOO, Oonya
  • Americas
  • Latin America and the Caribbean
  • Caribbean
  • Grenada
English

Oonya KEMPADOO (fiction writer, nonfiction writer; Grenada) has worked with UNICEF and UNAIDS in Grenada and in Trinidad. Her writing has appeared in the collections Trinidad Noir, Caribbean Dispatches, Stories From Blue Lattitudes, and the literary magazine The Bomb. Her first novel, Buxton Spice (1998), was long-listed for the Orange Prize and translated into six languages. She has just completed a screen adaptation for her second novel, Tide Running (2001). She participates courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.

Happening Now

  • Congratulations to our colleagues Jennifer Croft and Aron Aji, who are among those serving as judges for the National Book Awards this year, in their case in the category of translated literature.

  • Ranjit Hoskote’s speech at the 2024 Goa Literary Festival addresses the current situation in Gaza.

  • In NY Times, Bina Shah worries about the state of Pakistani—and American—democracy.

  • “I went to [Ayodhya] to think about what it means to be an Indian and a Hindu... ”  A new essay by critic and novelist Chandrahas Choudhury.

  • In the January 2024 iteration of the French/English non-fiction site Frictions, T J Benson writes about “Riding Afrobeats Across the World.” Also new, a next installment in the bilingual series featuring work by students from Paris VIII’s Creative Writing program and the University of Iowa’s NFW program.

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