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Formations: Ferdinand Dennis on The Black and White Museum

A photo of the book cover for Ferdinand Dennis' book The Black and White Museum, set against a red background. The event title is also displayed on the red background.
In conversation

Watch online as critically acclaimed author Ferdinand Dennis talks to NTU English students about his new collection of short stories The Black and White Museum. This free, livestreamed event is part of Formations, an ongoing public events programme from Bonington Gallery and NTU's Postcolonial Studies Centre in response to Black History Month and the Decolonisation Agenda.

Past event

Event details

In this free, livestreamed event, Formations audiences will be able to watch critically acclaimed author Ferdinand Dennis' visit to NTU English students from the 'Black Writing in Britain' module. Ferdinand will read from his newly published collection of short stories, The Black and White Museum, and discuss his work, life, and career.

The Black and White Museum

From Ferdinand Dennis, the critically acclaimed author of the novel Duppy Conqueror, comes The Black and White Museum, a collection of both highly personal and universal short stories. These at their heart reveal the emotional drama of faded love, the loss of individual and shared memory and the wistful longing for home. His stories powerfully portray the black presence in post-Windrush London, with its hurtling gentrification and everyday racism. Ferdinand’s characters gain wisdom and maturity with age but become powerless, as they are less able to change the course of their lives. For some there is the temptation of a return “home” but home, like London, has also moved on and is not the paradise of their memories.

Formations

This event is part of Formations, an ongoing public events programme from Bonington Gallery and NTU's Postcolonial Studies Centre in response to Black History Month and the Decolonisation Agenda. Find out more about upcoming Formations events.

Bonington Gallery is part of Curated & Created — NTU's extra-curricular arts programme. Get the latest announcements and offers straight to your inbox by signing up to our mailing list.

Programme

Biographical notes

Ferdinand Dennis is a writer, broadcaster, journalist and lecturer, who is Jamaican by birth but at the age of eight moved to England, where his parents had migrated in the late 1950s. Dr James Procter notes: “Perhaps as a result of his Caribbean background, Dennis is a writer ultimately more concerned with routes than roots.” Other books by Ferdinand Dennis: The Sleepless Summer; The Last Blues Dance and Duppy Conqueror, which also published by HopeRoad. The author lives in North London.

Virtual Event

Past event

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