SLCL Presents “Chain Gang All-Stars” Author Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
St. Louis County Library Foundation’s Favorite Author Series, Washington University Arts & Sciences, and The Novel Neighbor present acclaimed, National Book Award nominated novelist Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of one of the most talked about books of 2023 - “Chain Gang All-Stars.”
The event will take place on Wednesday, January 31 at 7:00 p.m. at Washington University’s Emerson Theater in the Knight Conference Center (Washington University Campus - Throop Drive at Snow Way, St. Louis, MO 63130).
The program is free and open to the public. Books will be available for purchase at the event from The Novel Neighbor.
A New York Times Top Ten Book of the Year and finalist for the National Book Award in fiction.
Loretta Thurwar and Hamara “Hurricane Staxxx” Stacker are the stars of the Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly popular, highly controversial program in America’s increasingly dominant private prison industry. It’s the return of the gladiators, and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom.
In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death matches before packed arenas with righteous protestors at the gates. Thurwar and Staxxx, both teammates and lovers, are the fan favorites. And if all goes well, Thurwar will be free in just a few matches, a fact she carries as heavily as her lethal hammer. As she prepares to leave her fellow Links, Thurwar considers how she might help preserve their humanity, in defiance of these so-called games. But CAPE’s corporate owners will stop at nothing to protect their status quo, and the obstacles they lay in Thurwar’s path have devastating consequences.
Moving from the Links in the field to the protestors, to the CAPE employees and beyond, “Chain-Gang All-Stars” is a kaleidoscopic, excoriating look at the American prison system’s unholy alliance of systemic racism, unchecked capitalism, and mass incarceration, and a clear-eyed reckoning with what freedom in this country really means from a “new and necessary American voice” (Tommy Orange, The New York Times Book Review).
NANA KWAME ADJEI-BRENYAH is the New York Times-bestselling author of “Friday Black.” His work has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Esquire, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. He was a National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” honoree, the winner of the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and the Saroyan Prize, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Award for Best First Book, along with many other honors.
Program sites are accessible. With at least two weeks' notice, accommodations will be made for persons with disabilities. Call 314-994-3300 or contact us.