John Keene, associate professor of English and chair of the African and African American studies department at the Newark campus of Rutgers University in New Jersey, has been chosen as the recipient of the 2016 Lannan Literary Award for fiction. The award, established in 1989 by the Lannan Foundation based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, recognizes “significant contributions to English-language literature.”
Professor Keene was recognized for his critically acclaimed collection of novellas and short stories, Counternarratives (New Directions, 2015). The stories focus on the African diaspora from the time of the slave trade to the present day. An earlier work is the novel Annotations (New Directions, 1995).
Kenne is a graduate of Harvard University. He holds a master of fine arts degree in creative writing from New York University.
