photo by Alex M Phillip

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is the New York Times-bestselling author of Friday Black and Chain-Gang All-Stars. 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, a finalist for the National Book Awards, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circles' John Leonard Award for Best First Book, along with many other honors. Raised in Spring Valley, New York, he now lives in the Bronx.

In conversation with Adjunct Assistant Professor and Undergraduate Creative Writing Advisor in Fiction, Molly McGhee.

Art + Life is an intimate conversation series of poets and writers organized by Columbia’s Undergraduate Creative Writing Program for majors and aficionados. It has hosted writers like Pam Grossman, Morgan Parker, Tommy Pico, Jenny Zhang, Eileen Myles and many others, and provides an opportunity for students to ask the invited reader questions and to engage in roundtable discussions with the artist.