Co-sponsored with Cave Canem Foundation
Chris Abani is a novelist, poet, essayist, screenwriter and playwright. His work includes The Secret History of Las Vegas, and the poetry collections Sanctificum and There Are No Names for Red. He is the recipient of an Edgar Prize from the Mystery Writers of America, PEN USA Freedom-to-Write Award, the Prince Claus Award, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, a California Book Award, a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, a PEN Beyond the Margins Award, the PEN Hemingway Book Prize, and a Guggenheim Award.
Malcolm Tariq is from Savannah, Georgia, and is the author of Heed the Hollow (Graywolf Press, 2019), winner of the Cave Canem Prize, and Extended Play, winner of the 2017 Gertrude Press Poetry Chapbook Contest. A graduate of Emory University, Tariq has a PhD in English from the University of Michigan.