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How to pronounce Afabwaje Kurian: ah-fah-bwah-jay CURE-ee-an
Afabwaje Kurian received her MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her short fiction has appeared in McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, Callaloo, Crazyhorse, The Bare Life Review, and Joyland Magazine. She has taught creative writing at the University of Iowa, for the International Writing Program, and for The Writer's Center. Born in Jos, Nigeria, and raised in Prince George's County, Maryland, and in Ohio, Afabwaje now divides her time between Washington, DC, and the Midwest.
Afabwaje Kurian's website
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Paul Harding is the author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Tinkers and
This Other Eden. He is a Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at
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Paul Harding: From the very opening, I love the complexity of
the characters and of the setting in which they are placed, that
of (at least) two different worlds or cultures. How did the idea
for this novel come to you?
I visited Nigeria in 2015 and conducted interviews with my relatives. My paternal uncle told me a story about a relative of mine
in the 1920s, who—out of compassion—carried a missionary on
his back when they walked long distances together and the missionary got tired. My uncle was nonplussed as he recounted this
story, stating it in a matter-of-fact voice. It was what it was. But
for me, it sparked many things—curiosity at what was behind the
story, disbelief, a sense of injustice at the thought that the missionary may have used my relative in this way. I mean, was this
a mutual exchange? Was my relative's charity reciprocated? Did
the missionary carry my relative on his back? So I wrote into this
image, turning it on its head in the process. In my version, Zanya
carries Reverend Jim to save his life, and in that ...
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