Fourth Annual Book Awards

Oct 20, 2009

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Laura Hoverson, Academic Affairs
(218) 299-3257
AMY KELLY, Media Relations director
(218) 299-3642

FOURTH ANNUAL NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS AT CONCORDIA

    Concordia College welcomes two extraordinary authors, Maxine Hong Kingston and Annette Gordon-Reed, for the fourth annual National Book Awards at Concordia College on Oct. 30.  The featured event is the Readings and Conversation at 7:30 p.m., Friday, Oct. 30 in the Centrum, Knutson Campus Center.  A reception and book signing will follow in the Knutson Campus Center atrium, offering the opportunity for guests to engage in stimulating conversation with the authors.
    Kingston received the 2008 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.  Best known for her books “The Woman Warrior” and “China Men,” her work has been lauded as a seamless blend of myth, legend, history, and biography.  She is also a winner of the National Book Critics Circle award, Mademoiselle award, Anisfiel-Wolf Race Relations award, American Book award, Hawaii Award for Literature, Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Writing Award, National Humanities Medal, and many others.
    Gordon-Reed won the 2008 National Book Award in Nonfiction as well as the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in History for her book: “The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family.”  The book untangles the complicated relations between Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States, and Sally Hemings, a slave as well as Jefferson’s wife’s half-sister. Hemings bore Jefferson seven children.
    Both authors will conduct master classes for students at 9:20 a.m., Friday, Oct. 30.  Kingston in Frida Nilsen Lounge and Gordon-Reed in Birkeland Alumni Lounge.
    These events are made possible through a partnership between Concordia College and the National Book Foundation.  The events are free and the public is invited to attend.

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