Louis Edwards
AUTHOR

Louis Edwards

Literature & Fiction
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The Guggenheim Fellowship and Whiting Award-winning Louis Edwards has published three acclaimed novels, including Ten Seconds, N, and Oscar Wilde Discovers America. Amistad/HarperCollins will publish the author’s long-awaited comeback, Ramadan Ramsey, in August of 2021. Ramadan Ramsey is the epic tale of a New Orleans boy whose very creation is so filled with tension that it bedevils his destiny before he is even born. Spanning from the Deep South to the Middle East, the novel bridges multiple countries and cultures, entwining two families who struggle to love and survive in the face of war, natural disasters, and their equally tumultuous, private mistakes and yearnings. Ramadan Ramsey begins in 1999 with the moving (and funny) teenage love story of Alicia Ramsey, a native New Orleans African American young woman, and Mustafa Totah, a Syrian immigrant who works in her neighborhood at his uncle’s convenience store. Through a series of familial betrayals, Mustafa returns to Syria unaware that Alicia is carrying his child.  When the baby is born, Alicia names their son Ramadan and raises him with the help of her mother, Mama Joon. But tragedy strikes when the epochal hurricane of 2005 barrels into New Orleans, shattering both the Ramsey and Totah families. Years later, when Ramadan turns twelve, he sets off to find Mustafa. It is an odyssey, filled with breathtaking and brilliant adventures, that takes Ramadan from the familiar world of New Orleans to Istanbul, and finally to Aleppo—as it is descending into the chaos of the Syrian Civil War—where he hopes to unite with the father he has never known. Intimate yet epic, heartbreaking yet triumphant, Ramadan Ramsey explores the urgency of 21st century childhood and the richness and complexity of the modern family as a shared global experience. It is also a reminder of Louis Edwards’ immense talent and fearless storytelling and is a welcome return of this literary light. Born and raised in Lake Charles, LA, Edwards attended Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge and Hunter College in New York City. After graduating from LSU, he moved to New Orleans, where he has had a decades-long career as a producer of music festivals and other special events. He is currently the Chief Creative Officer and Chief Marketing Officer of Festival Productions, Inc.-New Orleans which produces the world-famous New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (aka Jazz Fest). Over the past 35 years, Edwards has worked on countless events, including the JVC Jazz Festival-New York and the Essence Music Festival, as well as festivals in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C, Los Angeles, Houston, Newport, and elsewhere.
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