Hybrid Event: Code Noir Book Club with Canisia Lubrin & Cynthia Okechukwu

Join the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, Black Girls Read Chicago, and Women and Children First for a Code Noir book club meeting! Author Canisia Lubrin will join online and the event will be moderated by Cynthia Okechukwu, who will be in person at Women and Children First at Chicago.

All are welcome! Please join us online or in person. Please register if you plan to attend either in-person or virtually, as the Zoom Webinar link will be sent to attendees prior to the event.

Code Noir (Soft Skull / Knopf Canada) is a brilliant, startlingly original book that combines immense literary and political force. Its structure, deceptively simple, is based on the infamous Code Noir, a set of real historical decrees originally passed in 1685 by King Louis XIV of France defining the conditions of slavery in the French colonial empire. The original code had fifty-nine articles; Code Noir has fifty-nine linked fictions—vivid, unforgettable, multilayered fragments filled with globe-wise characters who desire to live beyond the ruins of the past.

Canisia Lubrin’s work has been recognized with the Griffin Poetry Prize, OCM Bocas Prize, and others. In 2021, Lubrin received a Windham-Campbell prize for poetry, and The Globe and Mail named her Poet of the Year. Code Noir, her debut fiction, won the 2025 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction. Other books include Voodoo Hypothesis, The Dyzgraphxst, and The World After Rain. Born in St. Lucia, Lubrin lives in Ontario, Canada and coordinates the Creative Writing MFA at the University of Guelph.

Cynthia Okechukwu is a lawyer by day, and in her free time she is an avid reader who enjoys amplifying books written by Black women through her in-person book club and online platform Black Girls Read Book Club. Born in Nigeria and raised mostly in Metro Detroit, she has proudly called Chicago home for over thirteen years.

The Carol Shields Prize for Fiction is the largest literary prize in the world for women and non-binary fiction writers. It celebrates authors from the United States and Canada. Code Noir by Canisia Lubrin was the 2025 Winner. Named after beloved Canadian-American author Carol Shields, the Prize is managed by the Carol Shields Prize Foundation. The Foundation provides scholarships, bursaries, and other forms of financial assistance to women and non-binary writers, and offers mentoring programs, salons, and residencies for the benefit of these writers and the general public.

Black Girls Read Book Club, also known as Black Girls Read Chicago, is a Chicago-based book club that celebrates Black women writers. Since 2016, the members of Black Girls Read Chicago have met monthly to discuss books written by Black women from the United States and around the world. By collectively elevating and celebrating the work of Black women writers, we affirm that our stories matter.

Women & Children First believes in the transformative power of literature. As intersectional trans-inclusive feminists, we believe books are tools for liberation. Since 1979, we have celebrated and amplified underrepresented voices. In order for feminism to remain relevant, it must be forever evolving.

Accessibility: This event will be live online and will be hosted in person at the bookstore, which is a wheelchair accessible space. Masks are strongly encouraged. Seating is on a first-come, first-serve basis. We have dimmable, non-fluorescent lights. To request ASL interpretation for this event, please email [email protected] by no later than 14 days before the event. For other questions or access needs, please email [email protected].

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Host or Publisher Women & Children First