Randall Kenan, an acclaimed author of novels, short stories, memoir and commentary, will read from his work at Vanderbilt University on Jan. 28.
Most of Kenan’s stories and novels are set in the fictional North Carolina community of Tims Creek, based on his hometown of Chinquapin, N.C. Their animating subject is the experience of being black and gay in the rural South.
“Fiercely and relentlessly, hilariously and sympathetically, Randall Kenan unfolds layer upon layer of the interlocked existences of his Tims Creek citizens,” said the New York Times. “In a single obscure hamlet, (he has created) a deeply and peculiarly American community, as memorable as any I have encountered in recent fiction.”
His much-praised short story collection, Let the Dead Bury Their Dead, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and was named a New York Times notable book in 1992. His other books include the novel, A Visitation of the Spirits, and the recent, non-fiction book, The Fire This Time, which blends memoir and commentary about American racial divisions as it pays homage to James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time.
Kenan has received a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation, a Whiting Foundation Writers’ Award, and the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He’s an associate professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Kenan will read from his work at 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 28, in Room 101 of Buttrick Hall on the Vanderbilt campus. The event is free and the public is invited.
Media contact: Jim Patterson, (615) 322-NEWS
jim.patterson@vanderbilt.edu