Folarin. He was also recently named to the african 39 list of the most promising africanamerican writees under 39. Educate to Morehouse College at the university of oxford and, disnovel, tick kind of black map, follows a nigerian Family Living in and put their assimilation american life. A plethora of fellow authors praised, including who folarin. This is a story about exile and diet part tour, the continual search for what has been in front of us. A grouping, agingly beautiful debut. So youre in for Something Special tonight. Tope will read from the book and then rebeca will join him in conversation jo are you hall he the opportunity to ask questions. Join me in welcoming to the stage, tope folarin. So good to be here. These kinds of book stores are really point to me because i dont have an msa, which is going to school for writing so theres a book store that is very close to where i live in fbi and spent a love 0 time there politic and prose shoutout to p p. So during my opening months was a writer when i was unsure of myself, going there and reading as many books as i could and at certain points copying the text of the books i was reading into notebook is smuggled into the store. So whenever i come into a book store i feel incredibly grateful happy because i wouldnt be as a writer if it wasnt for this kind of space. Im i was read trying to milwaukee my way through the 1619 project which youunder checking putt and struck me that its like just an incredibly important project, because its about reclaiming narrative. About saying that for so long American History has been defined any a particular way and you have a bunch of talents writers who aring saying theres another narrative we need to emjayce people have protested against this kind of selfanywheration but a it runs against the strain of the American History we have learn for so many years in this country. And it struck me as i was reading and making my way through the project on he train, thats what im trying to do in the book is trying to arrest my history in the hollywood of people who are like me away from people who hear for far too long been in charge of writing and narrating the histories. Thats why i wanted to write this book and why im so glad to be their talk but this project i worked on for so long. So i will just read the first few pages and im incredibly excited to have a conversation with rebecca about this. She told me could i serve her in heaven. She acoved my to school each day. School was but a mile away and a few hundred feet buy and trek. Just just a me families apartment dipped of build. She appeared at my side. Dont how she looked, memory summons a generic fig in her place, al elderly white woman with gray hair slight bit bent over. I do remember her touch, however. It felt cool and paper y, disarmingly comfortable on the hottest days of fall. She would often pat my head as we walked together. I felt comfortable protected somehow in her presence. She never walked all he okay ocool with me but her parting words were the same. Remember, if you are a good boy here on earth, you can serve me in heaven. Was five years old, word sounded magical to me, i didnt know her, i barely knew her maim but thank you offer she held out to eeach morning seemed far too gypping obvious in class i would think what servitude in heaven would be like. I imagined myself carrying buckets of water for her on streets of gold, rucking her feet as angels sing praises im have any own heavenly shack and time to do my own personal heavenly things as well. How else i would get to heaven . One day i told my father loud her offer. We were talking about heaven, favorite subject of his and i mentioned i already had a place there. Ive already found someone to serve, i said. What do you mean . Tad smiled warmly at me. Felt his love and repeated myself. Daddy, im going heaven, and how are you going to get there . I told him but the old later, my heavenly shack this streets of gold. My father stared at me a moment, grief and sadness on the surface of his face and thin an beginning help learned forward, stared about the eyes, listen to me now. The only person you will serve in heaven is god. You will serve no one else. My father toes healed to he many time he settled in it because he didnt want to be where anyone else. With cousin and lib lick lift nye career athens, new york city and houston mitchell father wanted to be an american and craved isolation so decided to travel to a city in america he knew nothing about. He left nye year ya in 1979 after a school in utah, weve very state university, offered him a place in the Mechanical Engineering program. His bride, my mother, accompanied hip. They arrived in a country that bore little resemblance of the country they expected. This mother, dow doo vatman of Television Shows like gun smokes and bonanza was disappoint helped he discovered cowboy hats were not the style and his purchase, brown ten galline hat be bought in houston. Mam a arrived in america expecting peace and love ship fell for the music of the beatles and beach boys. She imagined a country where love conner evidence odd and black people and white people lived together, mom and dad arrived in a place where theror no other black people for miles around asian place dominate bid all the never a heard of but this was america and they were in love. Moved into a small payment in ago again, utah, and started a family, came first in 1981 and my father in 1983. Dad attended classes during the day and mom take care or us at home occasionally she explored the city. We were all walking hand in hand soon enough. At night my parents held each other close and spoke their dreams into existence. They would have more children. My father would start a business. They would become wealthy. They would send their children to best schools. They would have many grandchildren. They would build their own version of paradise on a slip of descentre court a country that was dream, place that seemed impossible until they stepped off the plane, shelling the sun from their eyes and saw the expanse of land that my father had idly pointed to on a fading map. As i back now with the only what would come after the lest of my life, i realizedded my first five years are the most ordinary of my childhood. We moved frequently but a i can only remember joy. One of my favorite memories, for some reason im chasing my brother around or apartment with a red crayon. When i catch him i pin him gps the wall and color his teeth red and screams million any sleeks and thinks he is bleeding. She laughs when i tell her the bloodsen real and we all laugh and i allow my brother to color my teeth at well, then we color moms teeth she prefers lime green. Life floyd easily until my father had found a job at an auto repair shot in layton and hit. My father couldnt find a job as a mechanical engineer anyone in northern utah but any about cars and figured would work as a mechanic until Something Better came along. I mothers illness revealed after we moved into our twobedroom party, tiny place near the center of continue will pale yellow walds. Moms voice once quiet and reassuring grew loud and fearsome. Her hug once arm good comforting became cold and ridge just a minute stopped cooking. Sometime mist brother and i didnt eat until my father returned from work. She began to spend more time in her room. Away from us. One morning my brother so me awake and told me dad was crying. I did not believe him. I didnt think such a thing was possible. We scrambled to the living room and saw mom standing over dad. Her id boiling with rage. My father was naked. His clothes now nothing more than torn rags were around row room he was bleeding from wounding on hit thy and his fay was wreathed in a cancel racing of sweat and tears mitchell brother and i reached over to him but mom curses a us. Get the helen out of here. I was terrified. I looked at dad. His bottom lip was shaking his effect teeth were red go, he said. What are you wait north go now. We ran, we hugged each other in the corner of our room. Moments later my father began to scream. Over the course of the next few day mist brother and i witness the scene many times mitchell father cowering on the floor, my mother stand over him he took her punishment whenever she desubpoenaed a mood and then would tell us he would enter or room with a calm smile and say mom one feeling like herself but everything would soon be okay. He we tried to believe him. Before long we realize the truth. After dad left for week each morning my power locked herself in the room. Rarely interagencied with us but occasionally opened the door and asked to us come inside ship asked to us extend in the corner of the room near the dresser and opinioned to various places in the room. Her closet, dads desk, the empty spacer in her mirror. She asked us if we saw it. See what, mommy . Dont you see that . What is wrong with you . My brother and i glanced at each. Other was this a game . Momie dont see anything . Can we go now . No, not until you nell why it wont leave. Sometime mist brother and i lied. We made up story about what we saw my mother nodded sagely. Sometimes she disagreed with us and told to us look again. This could have been fun about the wild look in my mothers eyes unsettled us. Sometimes she told us we have to leave before they came to get it. Something but the place isnt right, not right at all, she sad say then pull highway covers switch on the radio and multier herself to sleep. I started school on september 7, 1987, a few weeks before i turned six. Holiday was a status student pace spent time watching the kids in neighborhood go past my bedroom window with books and bags like they wereday parting no another world. Dim my sented at school i could become something more than a brother or son. Each dave i went i would come back carrying knowledge that was mine alone mitch family walked me to school the first day imremember the principal extending her hand when i met her. Shyly extends mine as well and ace shook hands he said were very happy youre here. It was in her eyes, the way she looked at me, like i was something scary and unknown. Thats how i knew i was different. On the playground all my classmates asked if they could touch my hair. I said okay. Then simon rubbed any skin and rainway crying. It wont come off, he wailed. Why wont it come off . I was too tired after school to ask my fathers any questions, too excite but the knicks differ another kid rubbed my arm i asked my father would why hi war cass kinky and couldnt wash the brun of my head. The gap talking but no importance of pride, the meaning of selfrespect but i didnt really understand what he was saying. As he spoke, i thought about the old lady i met. That morning dad hugged me at the door of our apartment and told me id have to wok to school by missiles because he had to work and mom wasnt feeling well if said okay but i was afraid because school seemed to far away. Is a walked to school, tentatively next are so husband, she suddenly appeared like i dreamed her into existence. She told me her name was mrs. Hansen and asked me what i was dying . I told her i was walking to school. She smiled. Id never seen a little black boy around here before she says, where are you from . Im from here, i said. She laughed and placed a hand on my shoulder. She spoke as we without and i enjoyed hearing her voice, the generalle rise and fall because it seemed familiar. She asked me questions about dad and mom and my brother. She told me that she auld wanted to go to africa but never halved the chance. When we were a block from school she patted my head and i enjoyed speaking with you. You are wonderful little boy. She blinked slowly and nodded. Keep it up. Maybe one day youll get to serve me in high. If you do i promise youll get everything you ever wanted. The happiness i felt is a turned and rap to school, the sure joy, that something id been searching for ever since. Thank you. [applause] hey. Hi. Its lovely to beer. That was lovely reading. A gorgeous book. A complicated book. I want to start with something that keeps coming up in reviews and interviews and commentary about the book. And that is that it reads like a memoir but its not and i know you started out as writing memoir. Youve done rear very search, and i and then shifted to fictionalwided. What is your response to that specific comment beyond, thats correct its not a memoir. What would you think it provokes why do you think is provokes that response in particular. Is the storyline, is it writing, is it something that stands out structurally . Im grappling with this myself. Night in this age of auto fiction when i can point to a number of booked that are auto fictional books based on the lives of the character auto fictional. Is that a genre. Yes, its a genre. Its books that are based on the life of the writer. So she shih la comes to mine as something does this. A number of writer who rite from their lives. Theres a writer named david shield who wrote a book called reality hunger, which many see as the one opening salvo in this new writing about our lives, about reality, and sort of stepping a. From this motion that a writer has to sit down and create from whole cloth some sort of fantasy and render that on a page. So i think i was inspired by this impulse i read all the time and i love literature, im deeply obsessed with literature, and knew my story was interesting i thought and i thought i could kind of talk about a number of things i grapple with all at the time as human beings and i can do so within the construct of week and not a bunch of madeup characters. A kind of story before and i didnt want to do that even though i know that kind of story can be lucrative. So i wanted to do something new. Very keen to do so. And my story was kind of new so i just started with that. Were there succinct, tangible reasons for not being a memory . Yes two come to mine right now. I used to be one of these people who rolled any eyes i am such a weirdo, when i was writing would go and watch a lot of Author Interviews or youtube and did this obsessively for many months, invariably one of them would say my characters are talking to me and id roll my id, okay, here we negotiation mumbo jumbo nonsense and then he started writing and that happened to me. And so i noticed the character i was writing had his own desires and impulses that didnt align with mine, and when his life again to depart and when hit decisionmaking began to differ from the way i make decisions, i decidedded that was going in a fictional direction. The second reason is that i am perfectly happy to kind of inhabit that space between reality and unreality or nonreality. One of my favorite artists is the great iranian filmmaker if love his work, love watch his films all the time and he is very comfortable in hat space. My parents are from. Nigeria and i learned story but in things they encounter that it thought were fantastical but my father mains are quite real, and so when as i grew old are when i was younger thought part of the ron its parented have not achieved the success theyve acquired theyre still clinging from old stories from nigeria but is a i growledder and ban searching for myself i discovered that repudiating that aspect of my heritage was harming me. Theyre the question of memory and mismemory for you protagonist. You writes can because how am i supposed to discover who i. If a i cant tell the difference between what happened to me and what didnt. My memories and my actual Life Experiences are diverging. As a writer, being neck deep in writing memoir myself, i sort of have that same feeling. And so what how do we separate . Im not sure if we have to. Part of what happens when you write, you discover that you excuse me for idealogy the same person you kind of construct this story that makes sense for you today. You look in the mirror and say im this person. Now that you might ask a sibling or parent what actually happened or who you are and they might have a different story that disagrees or undermines the narrative you create for yourself and you can have moment of crisis when that happens. Thats happened to me a number of times. Something as trivial as i was talking to my brother and i said remember that one time i fell and scraped my knee at the eye Amusement Park because you minuted me. He said i didnt push you. That never happened but i in my mind i constructed a narrative where my brother pushed me and i sinned my knee. So i think aning the fact that we constructs ourselves important and the two is left 0 on the cutting room floor is important. I wanted to write a back that acknowledged that reality. The second thing is that id become obsess if with a motion that a lot of people of color, people of color, women, traps people, we inhadnt areolated that wasnt constant instructed for or benefit and were beginning to wrecken with that in a real way and i have been thinking about that. When is was growing growing up i was aware over fact if i made a few concessions, began to talk a certain way, stopped believing certain things, that the white folks who were my teachers, and who were my the charge of me in school would love me and shower me with praise and accept me whole cloth. Not whole cloth. Of course. Leaving part of mismyself behind. I would revisit that and i found that process a learning if want to capitulate because it seemed to easy, but part of what they war saying if you accept this reality we have constructed for our ben it and you try to become like us, questionll allow you a place like thats and shower you with riches and youll be fine. But then if you accept that bargain, youre perpetuating the current order, which is to say that arch who is like you, most pipe like you, will continue to suffer, youll be a shining example of one would made it but in so doing the current reality continues to exist. So thats why i kind of im so intrigued by 1619 project because part of is trying to reconstruct reality. For sure, and titles, which is timeless but also super poignant, super point right now because it feels like were at a time where black folks have finally been able to sort of break the monolith while also remaining loyal to the collective. Yeah. Good way of putting it. So when did you couple of with the title and what is your interpretation of what it convey this context of the actual novel and the broader sort of american narrative around black unless. Its a great question. The title pulled from a section in the book where its basically like the first journal entry in a book where talking hes at a point of crisis and talking how this kind of story he is constructed for himself no longer makes sense and part of that process is talking about fact his father desired for him to be a particular kind of black man, the kind of black man excepted bid mainstream soave side and accept reality also it is, and goes along and takes a nice job and marries and has the picket fence and never kind of interrogates himself and just seaned accepts the riches that come with capitulation and theres a part that doesnt want to do. That i thought the title works because its speaks directly to e