Sharjah Book Fair authors 2017

NOV 7 – Tuesday

2:00-2:50: Ryan Lobo (India; photographer, filmmaker, author)

Ryan Lobo is an award-winning photographer and filmmaker. His TED talk on storytelling received a standing ovation. Ryan Lobo has co-produced the critically acclaimed 2011 film The Redemption of General Butt Naked, the story of a former African warlord who terrorized Liberia with his child soldiers. The film won the award for best cinematography at the Sundance Film Festival in 2011 and was nominated for best feature length documentary film. His films have aired on the National Geographic Channel, Animal Planet, The Oprah Winfrey Show and PBS among many other networks. Mr. Iyer Goes to War is Ryan Lobo’s first novel.

4:00-4:50: Zeina Hachem Beck (Lebanon; poet)

Zeina Hashem Beck is a Lebanese poet with a BA and an MA in English Literature from the American University of Beirut. She won the 2016 May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Prize for her second full-length collection, Louder than Hearts (April 2017), about which Naomi Shihab Nye wrote, “Everything Arabic we treasure comes alive in these poems. Readers will feel restored to so many homes, revived, amazed. Zeina Hashem Beck writes with a brilliant, absolutely essential voice.” Zeina is also the author of two 2016 chapbooks: 3arabi Song, selected from 1,720 manuscripts as winner of the 2016 Rattle Chapbook Prize, and There Was and How Much There Was, chosen by Carol Ann Duffy, who praised her “remarkable gift for storytelling” in this pamphlet rich with women’s voices. Beck 's first book, To Live in Autumn, centered on Beirut, won the 2013 Backwaters Prize and was a runner-up for the 2014 Julie Suk Award.

NOV 8 – Wednesday

1:00-1:50: Edgar Samar (Philippines; poet, novelist)

Edgar Calabia Samar is a multi-awarded poet and fictionist from the Philippines, best known for his award-winning YA series Janus Sílang. His works have been awarded major literary prizes in his country, including the Palanca Awards and the NCCA Writer’s Prize. Four of his books have received the Philippine National Book Awards and the National Children’s Book Award. His novel Eight Muses of the Fall (translated by Mikael de Lara Co & Sasha Martinez) was longlisted in the 2009 Man Asian Literary Prize. He is an associate professor at Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines and also currently a visiting professor at Osaka University in Japan.

NOV 9 – Thursday

12:00-12:50: Leye Adenle (Nigeria; crime fiction)

Leye Adenle is a Nigerian crime writer living in London. He has published two novels. Easy Motion Tourist is his debut novel in English, and won the first ever Prix Marianne in 2016, which led him to speak at the Harrogate Crime Festival. It is a page-turning debut that is enriched by the details of Nigeria’s mega-city Lagos as Guy Collins discovers a mutilated female body, and thus goes on the case to reveal the horror of the body parts trade.

1:00-1:50: Vladimir Pistalo (Serbia; novelist)

Vladimir Pistalo is a Serbian novelist who has authored 11 books and numerous stories. He grew up in Mostar, Kraljevo and Belgrade and studied law in Belgrade and Sarajevo. He received his PhD in American History from the University of New Hampshire and now lives in the US, working as a professor at Becker College. The content of his novels comes from his law and journalism background. His novel Tesla, a Portrait with Masks (published in 2008) was a bestseller in Serbia for two years and won the NIN Literary Award for Best Novel – the highest honor for Serbian contemporary authors.

3:00-3:50: Tayari Jones (America; novelist, professor) – creative writing seminar

Professor Tayari Jones is the author of four novels including An American Marriage and Silver Sparrow. Silver Sparrow was named a #1 Indie Next Pick by booksellers in 2011, and the NEA added it to its Big Read Library of classics in 2016. She is a professor of literature and writing at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. A member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, she has also been a recipient of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. She is currently a Bennet Fellow at the Black Mountain Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

4:00-4:50: Victoria Christopher Murray (America; novelist) – creative writing seminar

Victoria Christopher Murray originally self-published her first novel, Temptation, which in 2000 was published by Time Warner. Temptation made numerous best-sellers lists and remained on the Essence bestsellers list for nine months. In 2001, Murray received her first NAACP Image Award for Temptation. Since Temptation, she has written more than 20 adult novels and a teen series. Murray has received numerous awards including the Phyllis Wheatley Trailblazer Award and nine African American Literary Awards. She has four NAACP Image Award nominations and in 2016, she won the Image Award for Outstanding Literature for her social commentary novel, Stand Your Ground. Several of Victoria’s novels have been optioned to become movies.

For more information, contact panderson@aus.edu