I am excited to announce that I have signed with Gary Heidt at FinePrint Literary Management for my new novel Nigerians in Space or Moonlight in Obz.
Gary has worked with a number of rising artists. He specializes in helping writers grow to their full potential and believes in my work and abilities. He is also an artist in his own right - making for a great collaboration.
I look forward to working with Gary in the future.
Filed under: Uncategorized on June 18th, 2008 | No Comments »
One of my passions is intellectual property - the assertion of ownership over creativity and innovation. This fiction piece is a satire about the copyrighting of musical rests by an eccentric American composer.
The story is slated to be published in OneShotZine.
Read the story on my website here.
Filed under: Uncategorized on May 28th, 2008 | No Comments »
My first novel, Everyone Comes from Belterra: When America Owned the Amazon, is now in the final stages of editing, with a slated August/September 2008 release. This book is the product of seven years of intensive research and writing.
I am thrilled to announce that the cover has been selected. Click on the thumbnail above to view it. Ordering information will become available in the next few weeks.
Read the summary of the book here.
Filed under: Uncategorized on May 27th, 2008 | No Comments »
This story is an excerpt from my forthcoming novel Everyone Comes from Belterra: When America Owned the Amazon, slated to be published by Pear Tree Press in July 2008.
The story originates from my background research for the novel, when I encountered the horrific human rights violations committed on the Putumayo river in the early 1900s. The Putumayo, it turned out, was not always a joyful multicolored tableau of dancing parrots, as the world music label suggests. This Peruvian river coursed through the site of a 20th century genocide.
Tens of thousands of indigenous Huitoto Indians were slaughtered at the hands of the Peruvian Amazon Rubber Company in its quest for black gold. Managed at the city of Iquitos by Julio Arana, many of the company’s key investors were English. The atrocities were eventually brought to light by the Irishmen Roger Casement, who had unearthed the genocide of the Congolese during the Belgian hunt for rubber in the Congo. None of the English shareholders were brought to justice. Worse, Julio Arana lived until his 90s and continued exploiting the Huitotos after Casement’s report.
This piece emerged from utter rage. It made me furious that Arana - and his family, who defended and celebrated him until his death - escaped retribution. The history of Arana epitomizes the notion of actions without consequences, and impunity disgusts me. My hope is that this story, drawn from a much lighter and even humorous work, will help keep the memory of these horrors alive, and make them, somehow, feel real enough for us to prevent them from ever happening again.
–Deji Olukotun
Click here for the full story.
This story is reprinted here from the The London Magazine, in which it appeared in September of 2006.
Filed under: Uncategorized on May 4th, 2008 | No Comments »
If you consider yourself young and drifting from the left, you will find Greg Keller’s new one-act play deeply unsettling. This probing production at the Cherry Lane Theatre examines the relationship of two old friends in Park Slope, Brooklyn as they wrestle with the choices they’ve made and the terror that accompanies personal and political transformation.
Read the full review here.
Filed under: Uncategorized on April 23rd, 2008 | No Comments »
