Spencer Wolff (Comparative Literature, Ph.d. 2013) will be publishing his debut novel, The Fire in His Wake (McSweeney’s, 2020) edited by doctoral candidate Nyuol Matiok, also in the Comparative Literature Department. The novel recounts the dramatic journey of a Congolese refugee who ends up in Rabat, Morocco and tries to make his way to Spain (and whose life intersects with that of a young employee at the UNHCR over the course of a tragic summer). The novel touches on many of the themes of exile, displacement and human dignity that Wolff explored in his Ph.D. dissertation, “The Darker Sides of Dignity: Freedom of Speech in the Wake of Authoritarian Collapse.” The novel will be released on June 23, 2020 with a launch scheduled at McNally Jackson in New York City. More information about it can be found here: https://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/the-fire-in-his-wake