Yvonne Adihambo Owuor, The Dragonfly's Sea, lecture performance

A reflection on the naming of the waters, and on how the dragonfly, their oldest living protector - predating the dinosaurs and surviving - is perhaps the most useful stand-in to the only mounting disputes surrounding the hub of the so-called Indo-Pacific of the Atlantic Ocean.

Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor is an author, essayist, public thinker, traveller and creative content developer. Born in Nairobi, Kenya, Owuor has an MPhil (Creative Writing) from the University of Queensland, Australia. She came to the literary limelight when she won the 2003 Caine Prize for African Writing for her story ‘Weight of Whispers’. Her first novel, Dust (2007) has been translated into several languages. Her next book, The Dragonfly Sea explores the long historical entanglement of East Africa and China mediated by the seas and a dared oceanic imaginary. It was released in March 2019. She has written for numerous publications worldwide, including National Geographic. She is at present a writer-in-resident for the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin where she is working on a new project.