Zoë Gadegbeku — Blue Futures, Break Open - with Hannah Grieco

Watch author Zoë Gadegbeku's book talk and reading at Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C.

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Blue Basin Island is the final resting spot of formerly enslaved Africans whose souls have flown from Earth--not to heaven or purgatory but toward freedom and a new life. Lucille, the island's seamstress, takes two forms. She lives among the inhabitants in human form and, along with the evil-repelling blue of the houses, her divine form protects people from the violence of the their former lives. Yet, even there, outside of time, the souls are not totally insulated from the world in which they were enslaved. Each time a Black person anywhere is harmed, a piece of Blue Basin disintegrates: an earthquake leaves hundreds of thousands dead, and bricks crumble on the island; when police kill a Black child asleep in her bed, the blue paint on homes throughout the island drips and then runs from the walls. Lucille must hold the island together, but she struggles to juggle the responsibility of ensuring everyone's safety while also seeking and losing her own private love. Grounding the story in African folklore and dipping into the rich literary tradition around African people with the power of flight, Zoë Gadegbeku visualizes the destination at the end of the flight and the new life that awaits them.

Zoë Gadegbeku is a Ghanaian writer. She received an MFA in creative writing from Emerson College and was a fellow at the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop. Her writing has appeared in Saraba Magazine, AFREADA, Blackbird, The Washington Post, and the anthology Pan African Spaces: Essays on Black Transnationalism. This is her first book.

Gadegbeku is in conversation with Hannah Grieco. Grieco is the author of First Kicking, Then Not, forthcoming from Stanchion in 2025. She writes a literary column for Washington City Paper, edits prose at a variety of small presses and literary journals, and teaches literature at Marymount University. You can read her work in The Washington Post, The Independent, Al Jazeera, Huffington Post, Brevity, Craft Literary, Poet Lore, Shenandoah, Fairy Tale Review, and more. Find her online at www.hgrieco.com and on most social media @writesloud.

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Founded by Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade in 1984, Politics and Prose Bookstore is Washington, D.C.'s premier independent bookstore and cultural hub, a gathering place for people interested in reading and discussing books. Politics and Prose offers superior service, unusual book choices, and a haven for book lovers in the store and online.

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