CONWAY, Ark. (Feb. 16, 2018) – “Genaro Kỳ Lý Smith skillfully balances the philosophical and the surreal in a powerful novel that explores identity in post-Vietnam War America. His unforgettable cast of characters ache with life and humanity as they struggle to find a place where they belong and the love that they deserve.” –Eric Nguyen, diaCRITICS.org
Poet and novelist Genaro Kỳ Lý Smith will visit Hendrix College on March 1, 2018. That evening, at 7:30 p.m. in Reves Recital Hall, he will present a lecture on “America and Vietnam: Countries of Dust and Dreams.” This event is free and open to the public and will be followed by a reception and book signing in Trieschmann Gallery.
Genaro Kỳ Lý Smith was born in Nha Trang, Vietnam in 1968. He is the author of The Land Baron’s Sun: The Story of Lý Loc and His Seven Wives (UL Press), which won the 2016 Indie Book Award in poetry. His novel The Land South of the Clouds, the second in the trilogy, was released on October 25, 2016. His other works of poetry and fiction have been published in Crab Orchard Review, Pembroke, Gumbo: An Anthology of African American Writing (Doubleday/Broadway), Asian American Literary Review, Xavier Review, Northridge Review, Amerasia Journal (UCLA), turnrow (U of Louisiana at Monroe), Scene Magazine, dis-Orient, Christmas Stories from Louisiana (UP of Mississippi), Kartika Review, and Blue Lyra Review.
Smith received the ATLAS grant from the Louisiana Board of Regents for 2013-14. He has earned first place in the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Fellowship competition and has been a recipient of both the Louisiana Division of the Arts Artist Fellowship and mini-grant. His works have also won second place in both the Poets & Writers Exchange Program and the Santa Fe Writers Program.
Smith earned a B.A. in English from California State University, Northridge in 1993. He later earned an M.A. and M.F.A. in creative writing from McNeese State University in Lake Charles, LA in 1999. He currently resides in Ruston with his wife Robyn and their two daughters, Layla and Naomi. He has been teaching literature, composition, and creative writing at Louisiana Tech University since 1999.
This event is sponsored by the Hendrix-Murphy Foundation Programs in Literature and Language, which are designed to enhance and enrich the study and teaching of literature and language at Hendrix College. For more information about this and future events, please contact Henryetta Vanaman, 501-450-4597 or vanaman@hendrix.edu.