Join us at Groundfloor in Oakland for African Book Club, an ongoing series at MoAD, facilitated by co-Founder Faith Adiele. February's selection is The Scent of Burnt Flowers, a pan-African thriller featured on The Daily Show and Good Morning America. Author Blitz Bazawule directed the recent musical version of The Color Purple.

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Get a copy of the book (you can see all the titles we’ve previously discussed on the MoAD Bookshop), read as much as you can (warning: we will discuss the end), then come discuss over drinks, snacks and Afrobeats! Suggested donation of $5.

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Program:

5:00-5:15 Socializing, introductions & community contract

5:15-6:15 Facilitated discussion of the book

6:15-6:30 Announcements & socializing

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About the Book

Fleeing persecution in 1960s America, a Black couple seeks asylum in Ghana, but fresh dangers and old secrets threaten their newfound freedom. Steeped in the history and mythology of postcolonial West Africa at the intersection of the civil rights movement in America, this gripping and ambitious debut merges political intrigue, magical encounters, and forbidden romance in an epic collision of morality and power.

About the Author

Blitz Bazawule is a multidisciplinary artist born in Ghana. His feature directorial debut, The Burial of Kojo, premiered on Netflix. He co-directed Beyoncé’s Black Is King, which earned him a Grammy nomination. The Color Purple, the feature film he directed for Warner Bros, premiered on Christmas Day 2023. As Blitz the Ambassador, he is a pioneer of mixing Afrobeat and Hip-Hop and has released 5 studio albums, working with such artists as Chuck D, Seun Kuti and Angelique Kidjo. His artwork has been featured at the Whitney Biennial. He is also a TED senior fellow and a Guggenheim fellow.

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About the Host

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Faith Adiele co-founded and hosts MoAD’s African Book Club, and her monthly column for Detour: Best Stories in Black Travel is syndicated in The Miami Herald. An award-winning memoirist, she contributes to the CALM app, HBO-Max, Alta Magazine, Hyperallergic and others, and her recent work has received Emmy and SoCal Journalism Award nominations. Faith graduated from Harvard College and the University of Iowa’s Writing Workshop and Nonfiction Writing programs. She has a set of hybrid chapbooks about her Nigerian-Nordic-American family forthcoming from Texas Review Press and a travel writing craft guide from Columbia Univ Press. She lives in Oakland and chairs the Writing & Literature program at California College for the Arts.

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