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Using Sadiya Hartman's “critical fabulation” method, I am attempting to fill in the gaps and silences in my family history. The work begins with an attempt to explore the history of my surname “Verissimo” while re-encountering stories that have gone untold and may be better left untold. The question I am asking is: “How do you tell a forbidden story?

Because this is an ongoing multi-genre book project, the focus of my talk will be on making sense of the silences through interviews with living members—most notably my father and his brother—as well as pulling ideas from existing images and visiting sites that have special meaning to the family.

About the Speaker

Jumoke Verissimo is a poet, fiction and nonfiction writer. She has two poetry books; I am Memory and The Birth of Illusion. She has also published a novel, A Small Silence, which was a finalist for the Ondaatje Prize in the United Kingdom. Aduke, Grandma, and the Moon's Hidden Secret is her most recent work, which she also translated into Yoruba. Some of her works are available in translation into other languages. She recently completed a novel.