LIFTed UNITED welcomes Authors CHIOMA OKEREKE & KIYEMIS, LIFTed UNITED Book Panel
CHIOMA OKEREKE
Okereke was born in Benin City, Nigeria. A poet and short story writer who performed internationally, Okereke had her early work published in Bum Rush, The Page and Callaloo literary magazine. She was shortlisted for the Undiscovered Authors Competition in 2006, as well as for the Daily Telegraph's Write a Novel in a Year Competition 2007.
Her Novel is: Waterbaby
She's the Pearl of Makoko and the world is her oyster. In Makoko, the floating slum off mainland Lagos, Nigeria, nineteen-year-old Baby yearns for an existence where she can escape the future her father has planned for her. With opportunities scarce, Baby jumps at the chance to join a newly launched drone-mapping project, aimed at broadening the visibility of her community.
Then a video of her at work goes viral and Baby finds herself with options she could never have imagined - including the possibility of leaving her birthplace to represent Makoko on the world stage. But will life beyond the lagoon be everything she's dreamed of? Or has everything she wants been in front of her all along?
KIYEMIS
Kiyemis is a poet and lecturer. The name she uses is a pseudonym, combining the first name of her mother with that of her grandmother. In 2012, while at university she began to contribute to Twitter and two years later launched her popular blog Les Bavardages de Kiyémis (Chat by Kiyémis). She currently resides in France.
Her Novel is: Et, refleurir (And, bloom again)
A first novel that pays tribute to the unreasonable dreams, the courage of a heroine leaving Cameroon to fulfill herself in France. Born in the Cameroonian village of Nyokon, Andoun is surrounded by the sound of hoes turning over the soil of groundnut crops. But his dreams are bigger than this life in the fields. Inspired by the story of her grandmother, the poet Kiyémis pays tribute to the unreasonable dreams, the recklessness, the ability to be reborn of those who choose to follow their destiny off the beaten track.