Reading Group
Online Book Klub: "When we speak of nothing"
Read. Talk. Share.
Join our July book club meeting online! Simply send an email to info-seattle@goethe.de and receive the Zoom access code. Let's keep reading and sharing experiences with the material!
The book club is free and open to everyone interested, but participants must purchase the individual texts themselves and are expected to have read the title to be discussed prior to the meeting.
Still need to get ahold of the book? Support local businesses like our community partner Elliott Bay Book Company! Call them at 206-624-6600 or visit their website to place an order.
This month's book is available only in English; the discussion will also be in English.
Built on multiple threads of suspense, this urban coming of age story places the question of difference at the heart of storytelling. An ode to queer black life, it mirrors the author’s own multi-cultural experience as a person with multiple ancestry and cultural contexts.
“Best mates Karl and Abu are both 17 and live near Kings Cross. It is 2011 and racial tensions are set to explode across London. Abu is infatuated with gorgeous classmate Nalini but dares not speak to her. Meanwhile, Karl is the target of the local “wannabe” thugs just for being different. When Karl finds out his father lives in Nigeria, he decides that Port Harcourt is the best place to escape the sound and fury of London, and connect with a Dad he’s never known. Rejected on arrival, Karl befriends Nakale, an activist who wants to expose the ecocide in the Niger Delta to the world, and falls headlong for his feisty cousin Janoma. Meanwhile, the murder of Mark Duggan triggers a full-scale riot in London. Abu finds himself in its midst, leading to a near-tragedy that forces Karl to race back home.
When We Speak of Nothing launches a powerful new voice onto the literary stage. The fluid prose, peppered with contemporary slang, captures what it means to be young, black, and queer in London. If grime music were a novel, it would be this.“
About the author:
Olumide Popoola is a London-based Nigerian-German who writes essays, poetry, short and long fiction. She also published a play and recorded spoken word in collaboration with musicians. Popoola holds a PhD in Creative Writing and has lectured at various universities. In 2018, she curated Berlin’s inaugural international African Book Festival, ‘Writing in Migration’. She created and led an Arts Council funded mentorship scheme for emerging LGBTQ+ writers.
Her critically acclaimed novel When We Speak of Nothing was published by Cassava Republic Press in 2018. Currently, she is the writer-in-residence at Greenwich University 2019/20.