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Chicago Novelist Bayo Ojikutu to Read at Roosevelt University’s Gage Gallery on February 2


Bayo

CHICAGO–(ENEWSPF)–January 27, 2015.  Bayo Ojikutu, award-winning author of the novels 47th Street Black and Free Burning will kick off the Roosevelt University MFA Program’s Spring Reading Series with a reading and discussion at 5 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 2 in Roosevelt’s Gage Gallery, 18 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago.

Ojikutu’s first novel, 47th Street Black won both the Washington Prize for Fiction and the Great American Book award. His short fiction has appeared in various media across the country, including the 2005 Akashic Press anthology Chicago Noir.

His short story “Yayi and Those Who Walk on Water: A Fable” received a nomination for the Pushcart Prize for outstanding fiction published in small literary presses in 2009. His second book, Free Burning was released in 2007 with much critical acclaim. Laura S. Washington in the Chicago Sun-Times said, “Its dark pages pound out more real-life social ills than you can find in the syllabus of an urban studies class.”

Ojikutu was born and raised in Chicago where he lives with his wife and son. He has taught creative writing at the University of Chicago and his alma mater, DePaul University.

Roosevelt University is proud to announce this spring Ojikutu is teaching a novel writing class in Roosevelt’s Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program. About his debut novel, Publishers Weekly declared it “an accomplished and engaging story.” His second novel, Free Burning, has been called “the most foreboding love letter the city has ever received,” by Timeout Chicago and “a searing portrayal of one of the shameful realities within an oft unjust society,” by Black Issues Book Review.

Free and open to the public, the reading is presented by the MFA in Creative Writing Program, the University’s literary magazine, Oyez Review, and the Department of Literature and Languages at Roosevelt University. For more information, contact [email protected] or 312-341-2417.

Source: www.roosevelt.edu


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