The Beverly Rogers, Carol C. Harter Black Mountain Institute (BMI) will host New York Times-bestselling author Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah at UNLV’s Judy Bayley Theatre on Sept. 14, the first major event of BMI’s 2023-24 event season. The reading is free with RSVP and open to the public.
“BMI is thrilled to host Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah,” said Charlotte Wyatt, associate director of programs at BMI. “Chain-Gang All-Stars is the kind of prescient – and devastating, and lyric, and funny – work of fiction that shifts the way a reader sees the world. Here in Las Vegas, it’s an especially important read in light of work accomplished by prisoner advocacy groups during Nevada’s most recent legislative session.”
Chain-Gang All-Stars, Adjei-Brenyah’s highly anticipated debut novel, imagines a near-future world in which incarcerated people can trade their sentences to compete in to-the-death combat with other prisoners, televised as pay-per-view sporting events. The book offers a bracing critique of America’s real-world treatment of prisoners as the story follows top competitor Loretta Thurwar, who is on the brink of winning the Criminal Action Penal Entertainment (CAPE) network's ultimate prize: her freedom.
Adjei-Brenyah's 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.
Copies of Adjei-Brenyah’s books will be available for sale on-site by The Writer’s Block. Black Mountain Institute’s full fall event season will be announced next month.
This reading is supported by the Program on Race, Gender & Policing at the William S. Boyd School of Law at UNLV.
About Black Mountain Institute
Black Mountain Institute at UNLV champions writers and storytellers through programs, fellowships and community engagement. From the brightest spot on the planet, BMI amplifies writing and artistic expression to connect us to each other in the Las Vegas Valley, the Southwest, and beyond. For more information about BMI, please visit their website.
