Teju Cole

Teju Cole (born June 27, 1975) is a Nigerian-American writer, photographer, and art historian.[2]

Teju Cole
Cole in 2013
BornObayemi Babajide Adetokunbo Onafuwa
(1975-06-27) June 27, 1975
Kalamazoo, Michigan, U.S.[1]
OccupationNovelist, photographer
Alma mater
Notable worksOpen City
Notable awards
Website
www.tejucole.com

Cole is the author of a novella, Every Day Is for the Thief (2007)[3]; a novel, Open City (2012)[4]; an essay collection, Known and Strange Things (2016)[5], and a photobook, Punto d'Ombra (2016); published in English in 2017 as Blind Spot)[6].

Personal life and education

Cole was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, to Nigerian parents, and is the oldest of four children.[1] Cole and his mother returned to Lagos, Nigeria, shortly after his birth,[7][8] where his father joined them after receiving his MBA from Western Michigan University.[1] Cole moved back to the United States at the age of 17 to attend Western Michigan University for one year, then transferred to Kalamazoo College, where he received his bachelor's degree in 1996.[1] After dropping out of medical school at the University of Michigan, Cole enrolled in an African art history program at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London,[8][9] then pursued a doctorate in art history at Columbia University.[1][10] He is the Gore Vidal Professor of the Practice of Creative Writing[11] at Harvard University and currently lives in Cambridge, Mass.

Career

Author

Cole is the author or co-author of several books, among them the novella, Every Day Is for the Thief;[12] the novel, Open City;[7] a collection of more than 40 essays, Known and Strange Things;[13] and a photobook, Punto d'Ombra (2016) (published in English in 2017 as Blind Spot). Salman Rushdie has described Cole as "among the most gifted writers of his generation".[14]

He was a Distinguished Writer in Residence at Bard College.[15] From June to November 2014 he was "writer in residence" of the Literaturhaus Zurich and the PWG Foundation in Zurich.

Every Day Is for the Thief
Main article: Every Day Is for the Thief

Published in 2007, Cole's debut novel, Every Day Is for the Thief, is the story of a young man who sets out to visit his home country, Nigeria, after being away for fifteen years.[16] The novel reads like a travel diary explaining the way of life in the city of Lagos and along the way, exposes how the democratic nature of corruption can affect anyone regardless of their status in the society.[16]

Open City
Main article: Open City (novel)

Written in 2011 and published in 2012, the novel focuses on "Nigerian immigrant Julius, a young graduate student studying psychiatry in New York City, has recently broken up with his girlfriend and spends most of his time dreamily walking around Manhattan. The majority of Open City centers on Julius’ inner thoughts as he rambles throughout the city, painting scenes of both what occurs around him and past events that he can’t help but dwell on. Ostensibly in search of his grandmother, Julius spends a number of weeks in Belgium, where he makes some interesting friends. Along the way, he meets many people and often has long discussions with them about philosophy and politics. He seems to welcome these conversations. Upon returning to New York, he meets a young Nigerian woman who profoundly changes the way he sees himself."[17]

Open City was translated into ten languages and has received generally positive reviews from literary critics. James Wood in The New Yorker calls it a "beautiful, subtle, and, finally, original novel".[7] According to The New York Times, "the novel’s importance lies in its honesty."[18] The Independent characterizes Open City as "hypnotic", "transfixing", and a "striking debut" for Cole,[19] while Time referred to the novel as "a profoundly original work, intellectually stimulating and possessing of a style both engaging and seductive."[20]

Known and Strange Things

In 2016, Cole published his first collection of essays and criticism. Writing for the New York Times, the poet Claudia Rankine called it "an essential and scintillating journey,"[21] and singled out, in particular, his essays on photography, wherein he "reveals [his] voracious appetite for and love of the visual."

Journalism and social commentary

Cole is a regular contributor to publications including the New York Times, Qarrtsiluni, Granta, The New Yorker, Transition magazine, The New Inquiry, and A Public Space. Quarrtsiluni (2005–2013) was an online literary magazine that attempted to edit blog software from social media; the purpose behind it was to give full access to writers/commentators of various issues "who never quite realized our dream of creating a print-on-demand option for each issue."[22] His monthly column for The New York Times Magazine, "On Photography," was a finalist for a National Magazine Award in 2016.[23]

Cole has been credited with coining the term "White Savior Industrial Complex" with a series of tweets followed by an article published in The Atlantic.[24][25][26] The original series of tweets that precipitated the article elicited a response from NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof whom Cole named as an example of a white savior. Kristof mistakenly referred to Cole, a Nigerian-American, as a Ugandan, said that he believed Cole was part of a backlash against white humanitarians from middle-class African scholars. Kristof said that he felt uncomfortable because he thought that Cole was saying that "white Americans should not intervene in a humanitarian disaster because the victims are of a different skin color."[24] Cole responded, saying that he was concerned by Kristof's sentimentality and his lack of analysis of the context of humanitarian need in Africa: "All he sees is need, and he sees no need to reason out the need for the need."[24]

Alongside Michael Ondaatje, Francine Prose, Peter Carey, Rachel Kushner, and Taiye Selasi, Cole was one of six writers who protested the PEN American Center gala honoring the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo with its "Freedom of Expression Courage" award in April 2015 by withdrawing as co-hosts of the event.[27] Writing in The New Yorker two days after the massacre of the Charlie Hebdo staff by Islamists in Paris, Cole claimed that the French publication was "racist and Islamophobic", a charge met with criticism from numerous commentators,[28] including the president of SOS Racisme, France's leading anti-racism organization, who praised Charlie Hebdo as “the greatest anti-racist weekly in this country.”[29]

Photography

Cole's photography was shown in a solo exhibition in Milan in 2016 called Punto d'ombra.[30] The photographs from this exhibition were published by the Italian publisher Contrasto Books in 2016,[31] and by Random House in 2017 under the title Blind Spot.[32]

Social media

Cole's innovative use of social media (particularly Twitter and Instagram) as a creative platform has been widely acknowledged.[33][34][35][36][37]

Bibliography
  • Cole, Teju (2007). Every Day Is for the Thief. Nigeria: Cassava Republic. ISBN 9789780805159. OCLC 228655577. A novella.
    • Published in 2014 by Random House in New York (ISBN 9780812995787) and by Faber in London (ISBN 9780571307920).
  • —— (2011). Open City. New York: Random House. ISBN 9780812980097. OCLC 553365107. A novel.
  • —— (2016). Known and Strange Things. New York. ISBN 9780812989786. OCLC 929917329. An essay collection.
  • —— (2016). Punto d'ombra. Foreword by Siri Hustvedt; translated by Gioia Guerzoni. Italy: Contrasto. ISBN 9788869656538. OCLC 949314747. A photobook.
    • Published in English by Random House in 2017 as Blind Spot (ISBN 9780399591075).
  • —— (2020). Fernweh. ISBN 978-1-912339-54-9.. A photobook.

Awards and honors
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References
  1. DeRitter, Margaret (September 2011). "From New Yorker Envy to Literary Acclaim". BeLight. Kalamazoo College. Archived from the original on 25 February 2015. Retrieved 19 June 2017.
  2. Bio. Teju Cole. Retrieved March 6, 2012.
  3. Kolawole, Samuel (2013-02-01). "African novels to look out for". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-05-28.
  4. "Open City by Teju Cole: 9780812980097 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books". PenguinRandomhouse.com. Retrieved 2020-05-28.
  5. Gappah, Petina (2016-08-07). "Known and Strange Things by Teju Cole review – a world of riches". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-05-28.
  6. Selasi, Taiye (2016-08-05). "Teju Cole talks to Taiye Selasi: 'Afropolitan, American, African. Whatever'". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-05-28.
  7. Wood, James (February 28, 2011). "The Arrival of Enigmas". The New Yorker. Retrieved 17 August 2013.
  8. DeRitter, Margaret (May 27, 2011). "Teju Cole, a K-College grad, writes what he observes through narrator in 'Open City'". Kalamazoo Gazette. Archived from the original on 25 February 2015. Retrieved 19 June 2017.
  9. Kassel, Matthew (March 10, 2014). "Interview: Teju Cole's 'Every Day Is for the Thief'". The New York Observer. Retrieved 10 August 2015.
  10. Brockes, Emma (June 21, 2014). "Teju Cole: 'Two drafts of a tweet? Insufferable. But when I tweet I'm still a writer'". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 February 2015.
  11. Cole, Teju. "bio : TEJU COLE". Retrieved 2019-01-16.
  12. "Every Day is for the Thief page at Cassava Republic". Archived from the original on June 1, 2013. Retrieved Feb 19, 2019.
  13. "Everything Is Fair Game In 'Known And Strange Things'". All Things Considered. NPR. August 16, 2016. Retrieved May 18, 2017.
  14. "Selected Shorts: Teju Cole & Salman Rushdie", SymphonySpace.
  15. "Bard Faculty: Teju Cole". Bard College. bard.edu. Retrieved June 18, 2017.
  16. Torkornoo, Edem (2014). "Shuffering and Shmiling: A Review of Teju Cole's Every Day Is for the Thief". Ayiba Magazine. ayibamagazine.com. Retrieved 18 June 2017.
  17. Open City: A Novel (9780812980097): Teju Cole: Books. Amazon.com. Retrieved March 6, 2012.
  18. Miguel Syjuco, "These Crowded Streets", The New York Times. Retrieved March 8, 2012.
  19. Boyd Tonkin, "Open City, By Teju Cole", The Independent. Retrieved March 8, 2012.
  20. Radhika Jones (December 7, 2011). "Top 10 Fiction Books". Time. Retrieved May 31, 2013.
  21. Rankine, Claudia (2016-08-09). "Teju Cole's Essays Build Connections Between African and Western Art". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-01-28.
  22. "Quarrtsiluni". Retrieved 19 June 2016.
  23. "Winners and Finalists Database | ASME". www.magazine.org. Retrieved 2017-01-28.
  24. Cole, Teju (March 21, 2012). "The White-Savior Industrial Complex". The Atlantic. Retrieved August 15, 2015.
  25. James Schneider, "Inside the White Saviour Industrial Complex", New African, January 6, 2015.
  26. "Africa, the white-savior industrial complex and the quest for ‘saviordom’ (Part 1)", November 12, 2014.
  27. "Peter Carey among writers to protest PEN honour for Charlie Hebdo", The Guardian, April 27, 2015.
  28. "If you don't speak French, how can you judge if Charlie Hebdo is racist?". www.newstatesman.com. Retrieved Feb 19, 2019.
  29. Solomon, Andrew; Nossel, Suzanne (May 1, 2015). "Opinion | Why We're Honoring Charlie Hebdo". Retrieved Feb 19, 2019 – via NYTimes.com.
  30. "PUNTO D'OMBRA – TEJU COLE | Fondazione Forma per la fotografia". www.formafoto.it. Retrieved 2017-01-28.
  31. "Punto d'ombra, ContrastoBooks". www.contrastobooks.com (in Italian). Retrieved 2017-01-28.
  32. Blind Spot by Teju Cole | PenguinRandomHouse.com.
  33. Adnan Khan, "Teju Cole is Way Better at Twitter Than You", Vice, August 28, 2013.
  34. Sneha Vakharia, "Teju Cole's instagram feed just gave us a masterclass on human behaviour", Catch News, August 19, 2015.
  35. Max Read,"Here Are Seven (Very) Short Stories About Drones by Award-Winning Author Teju Cole" Archived 2015-09-23 at the Wayback Machine, Gawker.com, January 15, 2013.
  36. Keira Rathbone, "The Boundary-Pushing Novelist Who’s Made Twitter His New Medium", Wired, July 22, 2014.
  37. "Teju Cole Writes A Story A Tweet At A Time", NPR, January 16, 2014.
  38. "Teju Cole's mesmerizing 'Open City' up for the NBCC fiction award". cleveland.com (November 1, 2011). Retrieved March 6, 2012.
  39. "Bard College Writer in Residence Teju Cole Wins 2012 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award". Bard College.
  40. Allison Flood (May 29, 2012). "2012 Ondaatje prize 2012 goes to debut novel by Rahul Bhattacharya". The Guardian. Retrieved May 29, 2012.
  41. Duncan Murrell (March 30, 2012). "The Sisters Brothers v. Open City". The Morning News. Retrieved May 31, 2013.
  42. Silke Bartlick (May 2, 2013). "Germany's International Literature Award honors world's best books". Deutsche Welle. Retrieved May 31, 2013.
  43. Aygül Cizmecioglu (31 May 2013). "German literature prize for Teju Cole's debut NYC novel". Deutsche Welle. Retrieved May 31, 2013.
  44. "Prize Citation for Teju Cole". Windham–Campbell Literature Prize. February 24, 2015. Retrieved February 25, 2015.
  45. "John Simon Guggenheim Foundation | Teju Cole". Retrieved 2019-08-21.
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