Folarin. He was also recently named to the african 39 list of the most promising africanamerican writees under 39. Educate to Morehouse College at the university of oxford and, disnovel, tick kind of black map, follows a nigerian Family Living in and put their assimilation american life. A plethora of fellow authors praised, including who folarin. This is a story about exile and diet part tour, the continual search for what has been in front of us. A grouping, agingly beautiful debut. So youre in for Something Special tonight. Tope will read from the book and then rebeca will join him in conversation jo are you hall he the opportunity to ask questions. Join me in welcoming to the stage, tope folarin. So good to be here. These kinds of book stores are really point to me because i dont have an msa, which is going to school for writing so theres a book store that is very close to where i live in fbi and spent a love 0 time there politic and prose shoutout to p p. So during my opening months was a writer when i was unsure of myself, going there and reading as many books as i could and at certain points copying the text of the books i was reading into notebook is smuggled into the store. So whenever i come into a book store i feel incredibly grateful happy because i wouldnt be as a writer if it wasnt for this kind of space. Im i was read trying to milwaukee my way through the 1619 project which youunder checking putt and struck me that its like just an incredibly important project, because its about reclaiming narrative. About saying that for so long American History has been defined any a particular way and you have a bunch of talents writers who aring saying theres another narrative we need to emjayce people have protested against this kind of selfanywheration but a it runs against the strain of the American History we have learn for so many years in this country. And it struck me as i was reading and making my way through the project on he train, thats what im trying to do in the book is trying to arrest my history in the hollywood of people who are like me away from people who hear for far too long been in charge of writing and narrating the histories. Thats why i wanted to write this book and why im so glad to be their talk but this project i worked on for so long. So i will just read the first few pages and im incredibly excited to have a conversation with rebecca about this. She told me could i serve her in heaven. She acoved my to school each day. School was but a mile away and a few hundred feet buy and trek. Just just a me families apartment dipped of build. She appeared at my side. Dont how she looked, memory summons a generic fig in her place, al elderly white woman with gray hair slight bit bent over. I do remember her touch, however. It felt cool and paper y, disarmingly comfortable on the hottest days of fall. She would often pat my head as we walked together. I felt comfortable protected somehow in her presence. She never walked all he okay ocool with me but her parting words were the same. Remember, if you are a good boy here on earth, you can serve me in heaven. Was five years old, word sounded magical to me, i didnt know her, i barely knew her maim but thank you offer she held out to eeach morning seemed far too gypping obvious in class i would think what servitude in heaven would be like. I imagined myself carrying buckets of water for her on streets of gold, rucking her feet as angels sing praises im have any own heavenly shack and time to do my own personal heavenly things as well. How else i would get to heaven . One day i told my father loud her offer. We were talking about heaven, favorite subject of his and i mentioned i already had a place there. Ive already found someone to serve, i said. What do you mean . Tad smiled warmly at me. Felt his love and repeated myself. Daddy, im going heaven, and how are you going to get there . I told him but the old later, my heavenly shack this streets of gold. My father stared at me a moment, grief and sadness on the surface of his face and thin an beginning help learned forward, stared about the eyes, listen to me now. The only person you will serve in heaven is god. You will serve no one else. My father toes healed to he many time he settled in it because he didnt want to be where anyone else. With cousin and lib lick lift nye career athens, new york city and houston mitchell father wanted to be an american and craved isolation so decided to travel to a city in america he knew nothing about. He left nye year ya in 1979 after a school in utah, weve very state university, offered him a place in the Mechanical Engineering program. His bride, my mother, accompanied hip. They arrived in a country that bore little resemblance of the country they expected. This mother, dow doo vatman of Television Shows like gun smokes and bonanza was disappoint helped he discovered cowboy hats were not the style and his purchase, brown ten galline hat be bought in houston. Mam a arrived in america expecting peace and love ship fell for the music of the beatles and beach boys. She imagined a country where love conner evidence odd and black people and white people lived together, mom and dad arrived in a place where theror no other black people for miles around asian place dominate bid all the never a heard of but this was america and they were in love. Moved into a small payment in ago again, utah, and started a family, came first in 1981 and my father in 1983. Dad attended classes during the day and mom take care or us at home occasionally she explored the city. We were all walking hand in hand soon enough. At night my parents held each other close and spoke their dreams into existence. They would have more children. My father would start a business. They would become wealthy. They would send their children to best schools. They would have many grandchildren. They would build their own version of paradise on a slip of descentre court a country that was dream, place that seemed impossible until they stepped off the plane, shelling the sun from their eyes and saw the expanse of land that my father had idly pointed to on a fading map. As i back now with the only what would come after the lest of my life, i realizedded my first five years are the most ordinary of my childhood. We moved frequently but a i can only remember joy. One of my favorite memories, for some reason im chasing my brother around or apartment with a red crayon. When i catch him i pin him gps the wall and color his teeth red and screams million any sleeks and thinks he is bleeding. She laughs when i tell her the bloodsen real and we all laugh and i allow my brother to color my teeth at well, then we color moms teeth she prefers lime green. Life floyd easily until my father had found a job at an auto repair shot in layton and hit. My father couldnt find a job as a mechanical engineer anyone in northern utah but any about cars and figured would work as a mechanic until Something Better came along. I mothers illness revealed after we moved into our twobedroom party, tiny place near the center of continue will pale yellow walds. Moms voice once quiet and reassuring grew loud and fearsome. Her hug once arm good comforting became cold and ridge just a minute stopped cooking. Sometime mist brother and i didnt eat until my father returned from work. She began to spend more time in her room. Away from us. One morning my brother so me awake and told me dad was crying. I did not believe him. I didnt think such a thing was possible. We scrambled to the living room and saw mom standing over dad. Her id boiling with rage. My father was naked. His clothes now nothing more than torn rags were around row room he was bleeding from wounding on hit thy and his fay was wreathed in a cancel racing of sweat and tears mitchell brother and i reached over to him but mom curses a us. Get the helen out of here. I was terrified. I looked at dad. His bottom lip was shaking his effect teeth were red go, he said. What are you wait north go now. We ran, we hugged each other in the corner of our room. Moments later my father began to scream. Over the course of the next few day mist brother and i witness the scene many times mitchell father cowering on the floor, my mother stand over him he took her punishment whenever she desubpoenaed a mood and then would tell us he would enter or room with a calm smile and say mom one feeling like herself but everything would soon be okay. He we tried to believe him. Before long we realize the truth. After dad left for week each morning my power locked herself in the room. Rarely interagencied with us but occasionally opened the door and asked to us come inside ship asked to us extend in the corner of the room near the dresser and opinioned to various places in the room. Her closet, dads desk, the empty spacer in her mirror. She asked us if we saw it. See what, mommy . Dont you see that . What is wrong with you . My brother and i glanced at each. Other was this a game . Momie dont see anything . Can we go now . No, not until you nell why it wont leave. Sometime mist brother and i lied. We made up story about what we saw my mother nodded sagely. Sometimes she disagreed with us and told to us look again. This could have been fun about the wild look in my mothers eyes unsettled us. Sometimes she told us we have to leave before they came to get it. Something but the place isnt right, not right at all, she sad say then pull highway covers switch on the radio and multier herself to sleep. I started school on september 7, 1987, a few weeks before i turned six. Holiday was a status student pace spent time watching the kids in neighborhood go past my bedroom window with books and bags like they wereday parting no another world. Dim my sented at school i could become something more than a brother or son. Each dave i went i would come back carrying knowledge that was mine alone mitch family walked me to school the first day imremember the principal extending her hand when i met her. Shyly extends mine as well and ace shook hands he said were very happy youre here. It was in her eyes, the way she looked at me, like i was something scary and unknown. Thats how i knew i was different. On the playground all my classmates asked if they could touch my hair. I said okay. Then simon rubbed any skin and rainway crying. It wont come off, he wailed. Why wont it come off . I was too tired after school to ask my fathers any questions, too excite but the knicks differ another kid rubbed my arm i asked my father would why hi war cass kinky and couldnt wash the brun of my head. The gap talking but no importance of pride, the meaning of selfrespect but i didnt really understand what he was saying. As he spoke, i thought about the old lady i met. That morning dad hugged me at the door of our apartment and told me id have to wok to school by missiles because he had to work and mom wasnt feeling well if said okay but i was afraid because school seemed to far away. Is a walked to school, tentatively next are so husband, she suddenly appeared like i dreamed her into existence. She told me her name was mrs. Hansen and asked me what i was dying . I told her i was walking to school. She smiled. Id never seen a little black boy around here before she says, where are you from . Im from here, i said. She laughed and placed a hand on my shoulder. She spoke as we without and i enjoyed hearing her voice, the generalle rise and fall because it seemed familiar. She asked me questions about dad and mom and my brother. She told me that she auld wanted to go to africa but never halved the chance. When we were a block from school she patted my head and i enjoyed speaking with you. You are wonderful little boy. She blinked slowly and nodded. Keep it up. Maybe one day youll get to serve me in high. If you do i promise youll get everything you ever wanted. The happiness i felt is a turned and rap to school, the sure joy, that something id been searching for ever since. Thank you. [applause] hey. Hi. Its lovely to beer. That was lovely reading. A gorgeous book. A complicated book. I want to start with something that keeps coming up in reviews and interviews and commentary about the book. And that is that it reads like a memoir but its not and i know you started out as writing memoir. Youve done rear very search, and i and then shifted to fictionalwided. What is your response to that specific comment beyond, thats correct its not a memoir. What would you think it provokes why do you think is provokes that response in particular. Is the storyline, is it writing, is it something that stands out structurally . Im grappling with this myself. Night in this age of auto fiction when i can point to a number of booked that are auto fictional books based on the lives of the character auto fictional. Is that a genre. Yes, its a genre. Its books that are based on the life of the writer. So she shih la comes to mine as something does this. A number of writer who rite from their lives. Theres a writer named david shield who wrote a book called reality hunger, which many see as the one opening salvo in this new writing about our lives, about reality, and sort of stepping a. From this motion that a writer has to sit down and create from whole cloth some sort of fantasy and render that on a page. So i think i was inspired by this impulse i read all the time and i love literature, im deeply obsessed with literature, and knew my story was interesting i thought and i thought i could kind of talk about a number of things i grapple with all at the time as human beings and i can do so within the construct of week and not a bunch of madeup characters. A kind of story before and i didnt want to do that even though i know that kind of story can be lucrative. So i wanted to do something new. Very keen to do so. And my story was kind of new so i just started with that. Were there succinct, tangible reasons for not being a memory . Yes two come to mine right now. I used to be one of these people who rolled any eyes i am such a weirdo, when i was writing would go and watch a lot of Author Interviews or youtube and did this obsessively for many months, invariably one of them would say my characters are talking to me and id roll my id, okay, here we negotiation mumbo jumbo nonsense and then he started writing and that happened to me. And so i noticed the character i was writing had his own desires and impulses that didnt align with mine, and when his life again to depart and when hit decisionmaking began to differ from the way i make decisions, i decidedded that was going in a fictional direction. The second reason is that i am perfectly happy to kind of inhabit that space between reality and unreality or nonreality. One of my favorite artists is the great iranian filmmaker if love his work, love watch his films all the time and he is very comfortable in hat space. My parents are from. Nigeria and i learned story but in things they encounter that it thought were fantastical but my father mains are quite real, and so when as i grew old are when i was younger thought part of the ron its parented have not achieved the success theyve acquired theyre still clinging from old stories from nigeria but is a i growledder and ban searching for myself i discovered that repudiating that aspect of my heritage was harming me. Theyre the question of memory and mismemory for you protagonist. You writes can because how am i supposed to discover who i. If a i cant tell the difference between what happened to me and what didnt. My memories and my actual Life Experiences are diverging. As a writer, being neck deep in writing memoir myself, i sort of have that same feeling. And so what how do we separate . Im not sure if we have to. Part of what happens when you write, you discover that you excuse me for idealogy the same person you kind of construct this story that makes sense for you today. You look in the mirror and say im this person. Now that you might ask a sibling or parent what actually happened or who you are and they might have a different story that disagrees or undermines the narrative you create for yourself and you can have moment of crisis when that happens. Thats happened to me a number of times. Something as trivial as i was talking to my brother and i said remember that one time i fell and scraped my knee at the eye Amusement Park because you minuted me. He said i didnt push you. That never happened but i in my mind i constructed a narrative where my brother pushed me and i sinned my knee. So i think aning the fact that we constructs ourselves important and the two is left 0 on the cutting room floor is important. I wanted to write a back that acknowledged that reality. The second thing is that id become obsess if with a motion that a lot of people of color, people of color, women, traps people, we inhadnt areolated that wasnt constant instructed for or benefit and were beginning to wrecken with that in a real way and i have been thinking about that. When is was growing growing up i was aware over fact if i made a few concessions, began to talk a certain way, stopped believing certain things, that the white folks who were my teachers, and who were my the charge of me in school would love me and shower me with praise and accept me whole cloth. Not whole cloth. Of course. Leaving part of mismyself behind. I would revisit that and i found that process a learning if want to capitulate because it seemed to easy, but part of what they war saying if you accept this reality we have constructed for our ben it and you try to become like us, questionll allow you a place like thats and shower you with riches and youll be fine. But then if you accept that bargain, youre perpetuating the current order, which is to say that arch who is like you, most pipe like you, will continue to suffer, youll be a shining example of one would made it but in so doing the current reality continues to exist. So thats why i kind of im so intrigued by 1619 project because part of is trying to reconstruct reality. For sure, and titles, which is timeless but also super poignant, super point right now because it feels like were at a time where black folks have finally been able to sort of break the monolith while also remaining loyal to the collective. Yeah. Good way of putting it. So when did you couple of with the title and what is your interpretation of what it convey this context of the actual novel and the broader sort of american narrative around black unless. Its a great question. The title pulled from a section in the book where its basically like the first journal entry in a book where talking hes at a point of crisis and talking how this kind of story he is constructed for himself no longer makes sense and part of that process is talking about fact his father desired for him to be a particular kind of black man, the kind of black man excepted bid mainstream soave side and accept reality also it is, and goes along and takes a nice job and marries and has the picket fence and never kind of interrogates himself and just seaned accepts the riches that come with capitulation and theres a part that doesnt want to do. That i thought the title works because its speaks directly to experience. With respect to the american story at large. The thing i think but all the time not just what is the the black writers and african writer. My question. Nigerian americans. Thats true. Talk all kind of tea, talking about [inaudible] so, this white comment tear on the immigrant fiction and write a have to describe the immigrant novel that works well on the market. And so like on the the economist who is driving a taxi in new york, and heard that story 0, there are any number the multigeneration wrap effort that starts in africa and [inaudible] and i think were call kind of aware of the fact that theres a kind of write this novel and youll bet the money acclaim. But were interesting in kind of creating waiting ourselves as 21st century writers who are going to step away from whatever the norm is. Who said to you write a novel and get the money. No. I will tell a story actually so i love i won the prize in 2013. A great moment for me and i was really happy, and i circulated a kind of well call its very early draft over the novel around to folks, and a couple wrote book very enthusiastically and said to me if you dont focus on focus hope to father character. Thats where the novel is, jetson Everything Else or make them smaller character at thes and write that novel we have something nice for you on in the other end of that. Twod e editor is respect said this to me. Just wanted to be part of the conversation to walk interest a become store and see my become on the shelf. Part of me was like, yeah, ill do that. Then as i continued to write i thought thats kind of what the character is rallying against this, nothings to could capitulate for whatever reasons. Doing the very hard thing of trying to figure out who he is, even in a place where that is not necessarily acceptable or might be penalized. So i thought as an artist i have to do the same. I have to do what my heart is telling me to do with respect to this novel. What is the difference between the kind of black man he thinks he should be and the kind of black man you are . Another great question. So the kind of dish don think nda knows and thats what the book is out. He has i think an interesting kind of he breaks away from his brother. He and his brother grow up and theyre in the same context, the same kind of parenting, and his brother decided at point the is for all intents and purposes an africanamerican. Thats who his, takes that pathway and says and tunda stays in a place of saying, well, i feel like an africanamerican but i also feel like theres Something Else and thats very dangerous and sort of unfavorable place to inhabit. I read dreams from my father by barack obama and the thing that ising is that barack obama takes a decision, im going to be an africanamerican. Its a very distinct decision and the early parts of the book about im going back and forth and figuring himself out of and then said im going to be an africanamerican. Goes ahead and marries michelle. Thats the part of the store. So i was asking myself, what if somebody doesnt make that decision and existings in a weird space but that kind of in between space. Is that possible . He is stale human being. He still has emotions, still loves and cries and hates and Everything Else, but he is kind of pushing away that identity decision for a while. I think with me i did something similar but then i went to england for granddaughter grad school and i began to figure out who i was and the difference with tund aye i decided was an africanamerican as well and i married an africanamerican woman but i think as oxnard i started to complicate the story and say i cant just kind of everything by parents taught me. Must be something from that tradition i can integrate into my personhood as well. Theres one thing, you said in an interview with npr the loss of his mother and that maternal foundation, he spend most of his time trying to reconstruct a sense of self that can exist without the presence of mother or father who are there for him. Im very interested in this idea or this notion of constructing and reconstructing a sense of self and response, rather than as a natural growth process or evolution. Did you consider that at all while you were writing. Absolutely. The thing i i guess a major sort of similarity between tund and myself is that i was aware when i was greg up that i was being offered Identity Card if you allow me to be sort of flippant, but so American Society was saying, youre an africanamerican, my dad and mom were saying youre a nigerian, and they were both offer these both have distinct hours and ideas how to be in the world and because i was growing up in utah i wasnt quite sure if either pathway made sense. So i became early on aware that one way could i do it was to try to kind ofcraft this come composite character. That is what i wanted to do it and was respectfully clothes. I was going through some Old High School pictures and quite embarrassing but kind of man manifested its in a way i dress. I was wearing big general co remember those . Host i had very tying polo committer a big run dmc chain on my neck and this is an amalgamation very weird outfit to be wearing and wore it proudly and looking back, i was trying to come up with the kind of definition of self. Isnt that what we do . I think we do but i think most people have a foundation. Like a solid foundation. If youre italian or Italian American you can cease these are my people or come from a milked mixed background. You say the blackness and thats why i reference Barack Obamas story. Thats something he grappled with in any number of friends i have who have parents from different backgrounds. So grapple with as well. A whole nuther level and thats adoption. Absolutely. Thats why in response to people who kind of a couple people have said something how particular this story is, its become exploring nor universal storm another part of this is i did part of my graduate work at oxford wassity and i was interested in identity and i was interested how africas see themselves and i spend a year and a half studying african identity and i was bed in the ways of identity that the kind of happen in africa first before people have this kind of ethic identification. And then you have the berlin conference and people start tentatively and then more forcefully saying im a nigerian, kenyan, whatever else, and then after independence identity shifts against and then it shifts again when folks are traveling back and forth across the atlantic, and so then by the time we get into the 21st 21st century we have the internet and the internet offers the possible of constructing new identities. I can create this dating profile, capture my best angle like mariah carrie. She always trying to capture angles. And say, all the wonderful things about me and kind of ignore the part of myself that maybe i dont want to divulge on the first, second or their date and i constructed a self thats different from the civilling a worldcoming around every day, so i think its something we all kind of confront now, and because of the web, because of social media, im endlessly fascinated by peoples profiles and avatar pictures they choose and how they construct their identity because thats a very distinct thing and say i have the power now, so ill come up with this kind of persona on the web. How often have he mid somebody who has this conditioned of very loud persona online and then you sit across from them at a coffee table and theyre just very quiet and demure and part of it is the internet provided with the freedom construct a self. And a platform. Yes. A community. A thousand percent but theres a distinct process of identity construction that is happening. People might not be aware of but its projecting of self you desire to be in its virtual state. It gets a little bit tricky when we start to think about the Current Administration and the way in which identity politics has become issue non grata. I was hoping we would have a political conversation. I figured in the 1619 project and reclaimation, and sort of connecting the links to the museum, the Smithsonian Museum and brians work in the lynching museum and all these things where were and the reparations and every year even in the artistic sphere and i think that its less about constructing an identity or deciding what is important as it is sort of walking in it. Yeah. Think dish dont think the sort of quote anymorings why not assassinate think both are happening and i think youre absolutely right. There is a kind of process of reclaimation that is happening for people of scholar thats a beautiful thing if think people are kind of engaged in a very difficult work of trying to couple with if a definition of self and both can happen simultaneously. Its a pretty extraordinary thing. Dont know how many of you have seen the 1619 project, the brain child of Nicole Hannah jones, a journalist to staff writer at the New York Times and mccarthur genius grant recipient. For a black woman, to propose to pitch this idea, im just losing everything the New York Times, which has been highly criticize nor coverage of race and largely white, to create it, to see it through and to have the response that it has had, and then kind of square that with the political landscape. Conversation. Conversation right now. Does it feel you i dont what to say hopeful during i want to say does it feel like were pushing forward . Yeah. Instead of kind of staying in a place where we might not know where to good next. Absolutely. A thousand percent its happening. I think that thats why its hopeful moment. When im not of forgetting over Climate Change im excited about the fact a number of people who are stepping forward and saying this is who i am and saying it loudly and proudly, and im remind even this whole kind of identity politics conversation. A large part of it is about people who are upsift about the fact they cant define culture anymore. They cant of course people who are upset. I think a lot of to be perfectly frank, im think professor the gentleman who wrote this book about identity politics. He is a member of this kind of class that is often sort of wealthy white male class, that is very deeply invested in the notion they kind of set the terms of the debate there was that whole conversation was but dish dont watch this instance but its the the simpsons my dad didnt aplow me to watch war to an bid the indian character on the show, and then i guess simpsons response was they like nobody said anything about it before, why is it an issue now . The reason why its an issue now is because have a new on people with a platform who say eve always had this problem. An agency. And people can save ive had a problem with that as well and somebody else greg up if there was a black character on some show, like instantly became associated with that character because theres a kind of very limited kind of racial imagination and imagination about personhood generally through the lens of the whites for sure. 100 . So two things. One, i would love for us to bev at a place to arrive at a place where we we dont have a toe say bus to be perfectly honest. If youre saying the folks who are doing this are white folks of a certain elite group, just say that. Also, as embolden its a the president , which is hard to even say that as embody ins and blatant as his racism is i file like those who write about this, who have been walking in this voice and this existence , are also emboldened and i think were stronger. Ways. I think were stronger than that, than him, that the what he is what he has decided is going to make America Great again or whatnot and i think your book is very much a part of that. I think you as a write are very much a part of that. And im very pleased to be here with you some support the book. Thank you very much. Means a great deal. Were going to init up for questions. Hi. Im a nigerian. And american, and i think that listening to your story, grew much new york and i was in long island but a little bit more diversity and also having a lot of those identity crises or picking the parts of being an oreo and how do you think that your upbringing of being africanamerican and nye joran american affected your blackness . Thats a great question. Well issue guess the question i mean, the questionses in how we define blackness. That was always just a really difficult and thorny thing. When i was greg up, blackness was its funny. When i was young, we were all i grew up in a place where i integrated my Elementary School and there werent any other black people around and i sensed we were fascinated be backness. When i was quite young we had this ani Elementary School we have an antidrug rap and the thing that was weird is everybody started to looking to me like i was suppose told know how to help and i was as helpless as Everything Else. That was something i was meant to do. Assumed this persona like i knew what was happening. And i did you have something. Yes. The funny thing is by the time i moved to ticks was nervous but meeting a whole bunch of black people for the first time i me. Izeed two memorial memorize the entire album, and i remember i played basketball so that was helpful and i was good at basketball. So that enabled me but even then im think about blackness in the very particular way. It was a very kind of limited notion of it and think can about blackness i didnt include my papers in that formulation of blackness and that was a mistake i made. I thought of them as immigrants, outsider who ha come in and thin thought theyre black as well. Theyre blackness is a legitimate experience, and why am i just because nicer not a nigerian character on the fresh prince of belair doesnt mean there wasnt a black experience and i was craving this sense there was a blackness that people were pining for, that it wanted to jump aboard the train as well and had to grow older before i could say theres a multidimensional blackness i can inhabit that has space for someone like me. Thank you for the question. Hello. Im nigerian, also railed in white suburbia. My question roku. Well joan a whats app group. I think for me, so i had a boyfriend who when he found out where i was from he was like, wow, and you maintained your blackness and i remember that, like, that comment kind of striking me, and i think about like when i meet other black people, africans, caribbeans who grow up a very white sub urban community, i noticed a difference between us and i think the differences between us is that my mother always drove it home that you are nigerian. Above anything else and i think what happened me was family, extended family, husbands, even though i grew up in a white town my parents made sure to keep us around nigerians other, africans, so did you have that experience growing up or were you very isolated. I was incredibly isolated and theres talk but fiction and nonfiction in the book. Theres grandmother character in the book that seemed to have the conversation with throughout the first part of the book, i spoke to my one of my to my paternal grandmother, i think, three timeness my life, and i didnt speak to my maternal grandmother until i was, like, late 20s in, early 30s so i didnt have any connection to nigeria. Show when i went home, home was nigeria but nigeria circa 1970 something their cultural references, the first time between nigeria and trying to throw out . My dad, my grandfather listened to that and i was like the outsider. And i know started listening to but, yeah, i think that my parents tried their very best mitch parents would only speak to us in so i hear it i. I dont speak it very well but itsile when good to nigeria and good to market somebody hear mist accent ask and will Say Something negative to me and drive up the price and i say, please stop. Settle down. But, yeah, they tried to do that and thats another reason why i felt so bereft when i was growing up because it was home was nigeria but it was this very efemoral space and it makes sense i was attracted to these other experiences, and, too, like Africa Nigeria was lamb booned in the press lampooned the in the press the names and the looks and everything eggs was connally made fun of. I was running as fast as could i from that or the only kind of positive african experience one could invoke was you were a prince or something. I, too was a prince and people would say, okay, thats something that elicit joy for many people. The one positive african experience one could have. So i was Loyalty Royalty i were i had a strong connection to nigeria. Thank you for the question. Hi. Thank you. Good evening. Im curious to know what you think about the political things that are happening now . I happen to be apos. We understand the immigrant experience, but now politically because of barack obama and how he didnt try to help, its changed the whole narrative now. Are you for reparations for american descend accident descendants of slaves. I am for reparations, yes, and i think its reparations, the movement is about acknowledging what happened, and acknowledging the fact that theres this idea that came wealth came out of nowhere and you he encounter perspective wheel talk but working hard for it or they might admit they inherit it but never a question but the kind of source of it. Theres been a lot of work recently thats been about sort of tying capitalism to slavery. You cant build a super power as wealthy as the United States without free labor, lets be perfectly honest, and labor treated in he worst way emergenciable and not compensated. Even the fact were having this conversation on stolen landing something that needs to be confronted. I was watching the kind of the president of brazil was having a conversation with his governors a couple days ago, and the governors were complain knight fact that the prior regime had allot certain lands to indigenous population and he said dope these people understand their is their land to develop ways want to . Like he was completely ignorant. He had no sense that, yes, his european forebears had come and taken the land from the indigenous inhabitants and america reasons kind of historical kind of erasure, and suffuses everything. Even the idea of going into a store and buying the product you dont think about the product came from, who made it, who is getting shirked to get you buy it for a cheap price. Everything is kind of tied into this system of exploitation. And so if you dont acknowledge that, i think that we have well be confront the believe in everything, like Climate Changes, you can continue to extract the earth without acknowledging we are interconnected and the earth requires care. A long way of saying i do and we need to confront our history if we want to move forward together. Im asking for your vote as well. [laughter] whats up. You talk about feeling bereft, feeling torn, having to choose this identity. If you could imagine a diagram you have nigerian and american. Were there ever moments in this journey of identity where you have or have there been moments of overlap where you saw commonality between the two or was it always so distinct, one or the other. A great question. If i have any advantages, inhabiting the position i inhabit, somebody who is born and raised in country of nigerian parents i have been able to see the kind of innate humanness that we all have and share. The first time i went to a white persons house, i remember quite vividly how intimidate i was about entering the house and i felt like what i is happening in there . I just i had no sense of how they lived or what kind of special things was happening in the house and i went into the house and liked like my house citizen were have something argument about something stupid. I thought, it is, having argument but stupid thing and the dad my me insecure and projecting and in majors the s i recognized in my house were playing out in his house as well so a lot of connections between the two. But there isnt i also grew up in a space where my family, we werent some of murrell advertise were mormons and the gained social status and wealth and other thing and we didnt. So i was aware on the way che that you changed himselfs the similarities and the differences and of course, when i asked my dad why didnt we convert, because id see my friends, town at the street with never nigerians started coming to and put im taking the ankle suppress. Why canes have senate my dad was very sort of clear bother wanting to maintain who he was in the midst of that. So i became aware the differences and, years, were all human beings but the cultural differences are very important as well. Im michael. I notice you said on your degrees are pretty mump practical. You didnt have an mfa. You wanted to get interest into fictional writing. What steps died you take in order to bid you take in order to become a writer without having that mfa and did you notice or did you well, did you notice as far as like road blocks without getting getting . The difference between editors and publishers and Something Like they didnt take your seriously because you didnt have the fma . How did that whole how did got about. Before i respond do you want to no, its fine. I think this is the last question. I have to leave and he has so sign the books. Long story short, it was incredibly difficult and in my case it was so heres whale thought if i thought if i just worked on craft for a very long time, at some point people would be drawn to genius of my process or of my prose, and even and so i was very committed to that process and i one thinking about marketability. I thought if i write beautiful prose or get to that place that beam e people respect the work and then i won the kean prize and i thought that would take care of everything. Im the guy who people want and i discovered that still wasnt the case. Along way of saying im here at somebody published a novel but is was incredibly different and i went for many days, weeks, months, wasnt sure what would happen because id see my friends who had done the mfa and then published book wiz the blushes from blurbs flown writing instructor that would cover the back and the inside cover and i was part or any network. Look the story i tell in the book 2009 me because ion im an outsider and insisting i want to tell me story, and people arent because the Creative Community depends on people saying some person of proem prominence saying person has what ick takes and the word spreads and people take it seriously and buzzing pout about you in bars and if youre not part of that conversation it becomes very difficult to enter, i and i touched that to be the case as well. Its an old story but i income my case we just a matter of persistence and i used to carry my stories around like that it were a mixed tape. And time went to a reading, 9 11 i saw professor i would drop a story. Most the time they rolled their eyes but a couple of people held me out and wrote back and i met my agent this way. And i got an agent and so it was a very incremental process, but eventually i got her. Thank you for the question. Thank you all for coming out. [applause] heres a look at books being published this week. Former dean of harvard law school, marsha minimum yo, questions whether forgiveness and amnestiesening strengthen the american Justice System when should law forgive . And in how to start a revolution, journalist lauren ducca explains the rise and Political Engagement amongst millenial if bill oreilly look ted life and temporary of President Trump in the United States of trump. And in piety and power, the soe Associated Press propertier profile Vice President mike pence. Ing also jack goldschmidt, former assistant attorney joan in the george w. Bush administration recalls the life of his step far and associate of teamsters boss, jimmy hoffa, in his book, hoffas shadow. A former success and james, a form are assistant u. S. Attorney for foe Southern District of new york privateses on analysis of Donald Trumps legal hit in plaintiff in chief. Look for these to its in book stores this coming week and watch for many authors in the near future on booktv from cspan2. On our Author Interview program after words, special adviser for Cyber Security in the george w. Bush administration, richard clack, excursions the current threats pose its by seiber warfare cyber warfare. In a short period of time most americans moved to getting their news from social media. With did not recognize how ice. Is would to manipulate social media. And so the russians took things they had been doing for a hundred. They called it its been in their doctrine for a hundred years. They took those things and empowered them on steroids by using the internet. And using social media. We werent ready for that. We still havent established regulations or passed laws to regulate social media. So while facebook and google and others can say theyre doing good things, we dont really know. Theres no auditing of what theyre doing, theres no standards of what theyre doing. And frankly, we know the russians are still doing it. Creating hatred, pitting americans against americans, going on both sides of every issue. Why is the russian government pretending to be americans, talking about vaccinations, unboth sides of the issue . And you can do that on every issue. The russian government still in our social media, pitching up dissent, hatred, causing to us hate each other, fight each other and focus inward, not just on the elect but every day. And the congress has not done its job. Its held hearings, organized hearings, has notes pass evidence any laws, has no federal Regulatory Agency has. And in the past, in the administrations, republican and democrat i serve in. You appoint something in the white house to be in charge of it and give her all the power she needs and all the resources she needs to coordinate a government response. Who is that person . An election security. No one. You have some people over at dhs trying to do good work, but some people in the fbi trying to do good work. Some people in the nsa and cyber command. But theres no coordinated strategy. Theres no funding, special funding to the effort. In addition to countering the russian activity, through social media, we also have to counter the russian activity going against the election system itself. 35 states, 39 states now we realize were hacked. The fbi has been really slow and dhs has been really slow in admitting that, and explain thing extent of the hacks. If you want to distend the electoral system, you have to defend the campaigns, you have to defend the parties, and you have to defend the candidates, and give secret Service Protection to president ial candidates but not cyber protection. Then you have to defend the data the voting dat registration. Which the russians hacked into. In many states. Who is on the rolls. Because there are ways of manipulating that cause to change an outcome. Then you have to worry but election machines and the reporting up. The whole ecosystem. People say its the responsibility of the states and counties. There are over 4,000 counties in this country. You think they have the Cyber Security skills in the county election board . I love the people of my county elections board. They dont have the skills. They dont have the resources to protect against the russian military. Here im like, when i say corporations have to defend themselves, here i think the government has to say, this is a federal election. Were going to have federal laws and federal standards and federal resources, and not saying that. Theyre saying the state, all decide on their standards. The stayed all have to defend themselves. They have to come up with the money. Thats crazy. The constitution says, the election tone president and congress, that the states shall do it, and then theres this wonderful word, its the word, but. Says but the congress may pass laws to do this. In other words the congress may preempt the states and the counties when it come federal elections. Why dont way . I think the answer is mitch mcconnell. Why does mitchell mitchell. Not want that to happen . Why doesnt he want federal aid . Why doesnt he want federal standards . I think because he realizes that the people who are doing this manipulation are supporting his side. Richmond clarkes new book is call the fifth domain to watch the rest of his interview and see more programming visit our website, booktv. Org and click then after words tab. 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