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Akin Adesokan
Akin Adesokan is the author of the novel Roots in the Sky, which won the Association of Nigerian Authors' Prize for Fiction in manuscript form in 1996. He also translated Isaac Delano's novel Aye D'Aiye Oyinbo into English as The Age of White Rulers, and has published numerous short stories and essays.
A Professor of Comparative Literature and of Cinema and Media Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, his critical studies include: Postcolonial Artists and Global Aesthetics and Everything Is Sampled: Print and Digital Mediations in African Arts and Letters, and co-editor of Celebrating D. O. Fagunwa: Aspects of African and World Literary History.
Among his awards are the ANA Fiction Prize, (1996), PEN USA West Freedom to Write Award (1998), and the Lillian Hellman/Dashiel Hammett Human Rights Watch Award (1999)."
South Side, his second novel, will be released in May.
Published Books
South Side
From uncertain beginnings as a refugee student in England in the 1950s, Abel Dankor has risen quickly to become a prominent writer and a true, though ill-at-ease, citizen of the world.
Author of five acclaimed novels, well-traveled, temperate yet self-absorbed, and possessing sharp social skills, Abel is worldly and cultured. Marked by a family history of displacement and endless migration, he also nurtures a desire to find a permanent home somewhere. He is on the verge of naturalizing as a citizen of Mande, a West African country, when he receives news of the death of his mentor and sponsor, the poet Sir Koroma Fouta. Following this devastating news Abel’s final option disappears. His unexpected encounter with Valeria promises to turn things around.
Here is a woman dedicated to an intuitive pursuit of the kind of dream he has come to regard as nightmare. Even after a brief encounter, she comes across to Abel as harboring a shadowy but intriguing past. With new signals that Abel’s childhood friend, Yacouba, will occupy a high office in Mande, he must decide whether to resume his pursuit of a permanent home, or trust in Valeria’s companionship.
