International Book Club: The Belly of the Atlantic with Vlad Dima – Part of the IRIS NRC series on the Soccer World Cup

Join IRIS NRC for its virtual November Book Club featuring Vlad Dima, Professor and Chair of African Cultural Studies at UW-Madison, for a discussion of the award-winning novel The Belly of the Atlantic by French-Senegalese author Fatou Diome. The first 20 Wisconsin K-12 educators who register for this event will receive a free copy of the book, and the first 20 UW-Madison students to register will receive one as well!

Participants are encouraged to read The Belly of the Atlantic by Fatou Diome before attending this online event. About the book:

Salie lives in Paris. Back home on the Senegalese island of Niodior, her football-crazy brother Madické counts on her to get him to France, the promised land where foreign footballers become world famous. The story of Salie and Madické highlights the painful situation of those who emigrate. It is a moving account of one of the great tragedies of our time.

Vlad Dima is Professor of African Cultural Studies and French, and Chair of African Cultural Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has published numerous articles, mainly on French and francophone cinemas, but also on Francophone literature, comics, American cinema, and television. He is the author of Sonic Space in Djibril Diop Mambety’s Films (Indiana University Press, 2017), and The Beautiful Skin: Football, Fantasy, and Cinematic Bodies in Africa (Michigan State University Press, 2020).