Writer at Risk Felix Kaputu Finds Himself at Home at Fordham

Dr. Felix Kaputu, Fordham University English Department’s new Writer at Risk, sits at the front of a classroom in Dealy Hall. Today, he’s leading a discussion on one of the first novels written by a black South African—Mine Boy by Peter Abrahams. Dr. Kaputu, drawing on his expertise in African studies, offers an interesting look inside the novel’s view of oral tradition. He brings up the concept of a “fireplace,” or a place where people gather to talk, tell stories, and be together. It is a warm, safe place to be with others. It occurs to me suddenly that, as a Writer at Risk, Kaputu might consider this classroom to be his own fireplace: this might be the place he tells his story.

Dr. Kaputu is the English Department’s Writer at Risk. The position is a collaboration between PEN America, the Artists at Risk Connection, Westbeth Artists Housing, and Fordham University. It offers writers like Dr. Kaputu a free, safe place to live, work, and write without the threat of violence from their home countries. Dr. Kaputu is Fordham’s second Writer at Risk. The first was Kanchana Ugbabe, who held the position for the last two years.

In 2006, Dr. Kaputu was in a jail cell in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, wrongfully accused of being an anti-government political subversive. Kaputu was, at the time, a university professor with a PhD in English literature. He found himself in trouble when he chose not to teach his university students about the dominant political party, instead teaching them the craft of writing. Dr. Kaputu’s only crime, according to him: “I was focusing on students.”

Dr. Kaputu feels that his past has made him stronger. In a piece shared at the Creative Writing Story Circle Gathering earlier this month, he wrote, “I learned to resist when condemned for prison without reason.” After four months in jail, Dr. Kaputu was forced to flee the country, believing his life was in danger.

How did Dr. Kaputu get from a Congo jail cell to Fordham University? “Oh, that’s a long story,” he says, laughing. Since 2006, he’s been considered a scholar at risk, and he’s been given safe haven by academic institutions worldwide. Fluent in 13 languages, Dr. Kaputu has taught in Belgium, Brazil, Poland, Japan, and the Netherlands. Within the U.S., he has taught at schools in New York, Massachusetts, and California.

Dr. Kaputu is happy with the community of students and faculty at Fordham University. Though he’s only been here for a few months, he says, “I feel a bit like home.”

This semester, Dr. Kaputu team-taught a course titled “Creating Dangerously: Writing Across Conflict Zones.” The class discusses literature from conflict zones of all kinds, from the current situation at the U.S.-Mexico border to the Rwandan Hutu-Tutsi conflict in 1994. Dr. Kaputu taught alongside Dr. Glenn Hendler, whom he’s enjoyed working with: “I’m grateful for finding, in any place where I go, specific people who are close with me, with whom I can share, with whom I can learn.”

Dr. Kaputu, who specializes in African religion and oral tradition, offers a unique perspective on many books read in the course, particularly those set in Rwanda and South Africa. He also draws on his own life experiences, such as being an immigrant thinking of returning to his homeland. “Today in class we were speaking about the diaspora,” he says. Effortlessly linking the class discussion to his life, he continues: “One of the things that happens to the diaspora is that you live abroad, and then abroad is not home, and going home is difficult because you’re a wanted man there. You keep dreaming for [things to change] one day so that you can go.”

In the spring semester of 2020, Dr. Kaputu will be co-teaching a creative writing course with Julie Trébault, the director of PEN America’s Artists-At-Risk project. The course, “Framing the Writing and Art of the Accused,” will also draw on his own experiences.

Dr. Kaputu is grateful for the opportunity to be at Fordham. In fact, he wishes he’d started here sooner. “Why now?” he asks. “Why didn’t I start in this place?” He will be the English Department’s Writer at Risk through the spring of 2021, teaching one course per semester and spending the rest of his time writing. Above all, Dr. Kaputu hopes to “continue what I like most in my life: being with students and working with them.”

We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Kaputu to the Fordam community.

Written by Erica Weidner FCRH Class of 2022