On this inaugural episode of the Journey of the Art podcast, I chat with Samuel Kolawole, Assistant Professor of English and African Studies at Pennsylvania State University and author of the forthcoming novel The Road to the Salt Sea.
Listen as we chat about Samuel’s beginnings as a writer, his writing studio for upcoming writers, and his MFA experience. In our extensive discussion about his forthcoming novel, we tried our very best not to give anything away and even spoke some Yoruba!
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About the Road to the Salt Sea
Able God works for low pay at a four-star hotel where he must flash his “toothpaste-white smile” for wealthy guests. When not tending to the hotel’s overprivileged clientele, he muses over self-help books and draws life lessons from the game of chess.
But Able’s ordinary life is upended when an early morning room service order leads him to interfere with Akudo, a sex worker involved with a powerful but dangerous hotel guest.
Suddenly caught in a web of violence, guilt, and fear, Able must run to save himself—a journey that leads him into the desert with a group of drug-addled migrants, headed by a charismatic religious leader calling himself Ben Ten.
The travelers’ dream of reaching Europe and a new life in a better place is shattered when they fall prey to human traffickers, suffer starvation, and find themselves on the precipice of death, fighting for their lives and their freedom.
About Samuel
Samuel Kọláwọlé was born and raised in Ibadan, Nigeria. His work has appeared in AGNI, Georgia Review, The Hopkins Review, Gulf Coast, Washington Square Review, Harvard Review, Image Journal, and other literary publications.
He has received numerous residencies and fellowships, and has been a finalist for the Graywolf Press African Fiction Prize, shortlisted for UK’s The First Novel Prize, and won an Editor-Writer Mentorship from the Word.
He studied at the University of Ibadan and holds a Master of Arts degree in Creative Writing with distinction from Rhodes University, South Africa; is a graduate of the MFA in Writing and Publishing at Vermont College of Fine Arts; and earned his PhD in English and Creative Writing from Georgia State University.
He has taught creative writing in Africa, Sweden, and the United States, and currently teaches fiction writing as an Assistant Professor of English and African Studies at Pennsylvania State University. He lives in State College, Pennsylvania.
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