UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Fiction writer and Penn State assistant professor Samuel Kọ́láwọlé will read from his works at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 26, in Paterno Library’s Foster Auditorium as part of the 2022-23 Mary E. Rolling Reading Series. The reading is free and open to the public.
Born and raised in Ibadan, Nigeria, Kọ́láwọle studied at the University of Ibadan and received a master’s degree with distinction in creative writing from Rhodes University in South Africa. He is also a graduate of the MFA (master of fine arts) Program in Writing and Publishing at Vermont College of Fine Arts and a faculty member for its low-residency MFA program. Kọ́láwọlé also taught creative writing in Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, South Africa, and Sweden prior to joining the Penn State creative writing faculty in 2022.
Kọ́láwọlé’s fiction has been supported with numerous fellowships, residencies, and scholarships and has appeared in publications such as AGNI, Gulf Coast, Washington Square Review, Georgia Review, Harvard Review, and The Hopkins Review. He has been a finalist for the Graywolf Press Africa Prize, was shortlisted for the U.K.’s The First Novel Prize in 2019, and won a 2019 Editor-Writer Mentorship Program for Diverse Writers award.
Kọ́láwọlé’s debut novel, “The Road to Salt Sea” (forthcoming from Amistad/Harper Collins) explores the current global migration crisis. Set along the trans-Saharan migration route from Nigeria to Libya, the novel tells the story of Rufus Tacitus, a hopeful university graduate turned accidental murderer, during an unrelenting journey of escape across the continent to the Italian coast.
Bestselling author Julianna Baggott says of the novel: “I cannot think of another time in my life when I have come across a new writer as profoundly talented as Samuel Kọ́láwọlé. [H]is profound talent has brought us a beautifully rendered, brutal novel told with great empathy and heart. ‘The Road to Salt Sea’ has all of the markings of a masterful and enduring work of literature … [and] I get the feeling that Kọ́láwọlé is just warming up.”
The Mary E. Rolling Reading Series is a program offered by Penn State’s Creative Writing Program in English and receives support from the College of the Liberal Arts; the Department of English; the Joseph L. Grucci Poetry Endowment; the Mary E. Rolling Lectureship in Creative Writing; and University Libraries. A full list of readings in the 2022-23 series can be found at creativewriting.psu.edu.