Speaker: Juliana Makuchi Nfah-Abbenyi
Time: 12:00 pm- 1:00 pm
Venue: 206 Ingraham Hall
Bio
Juliana Makuchi Nfah-Abbenyi is a distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature, the Associate Dean of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at North Carolina State University, who is also a past president of the African Literature Association. A literary critic, essayist and writer, she is widely published in her areas of research in African and African diaspora literatures, postcolonial literary and cultural studies, and in women’s and gender studies. She is the author of Gender in African Women’s Writing: Identity, Sexuality, and Difference, Your Madness, Not Mine: Stories of Cameroon, The Sacred Door and Other Stories: Cameroon Folktales of the Beba and co-editor of Reflections: An Anthology of New Work by African Women Poets. She has guest edited special issues of journals such as JALA: Journal of the African Literature Association, Tydskrif vir Letterkunde: A Journal for African Literature, The Global South and co-edited a special double issue of Journal des Africanistes. She writes fiction under the pen name Makuchi and is a consultant for a television series. Her short story “Woman of the Lake,” about the 1986 Lake Nyos disaster that devastated and wiped out entire communities in the North West Region of Cameroon, was nominated for the Pushcart Prize and her short story, “Land of My Dreams” about the ongoing war in Cameroon was selected for honorable mention in the 2023 Best Short Story award category of the African Literature Association.