Tope Folarin - A Particular Kind of Black Man — in conversation with Helene Cooper

An award-winning D.C.-based Nigerian-American writer, Folarin has been a Rhodes Scholar and was recently named to the Africa 39 list of the most promising African writers under 39. His first novel is the powerful coming-of age-story of Tunde Akinola, son of Nigerian-born parents struggling to make a new life in a small town in Utah. When the family eventually breaks under the strain, Tunde’s life becomes the search for a place where he can feel at home. Following his protagonist from his remarried father’s household to a Texas middle school and on to a historically black college, Folarin explores questions of identity and exile, manhood and meaning itself. Folarin will be in conversation with Helene Cooper, author of Madame President.