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Cambridge Public Library to Host Award-Winning Mi’kmaq Author, Amanda Peters, to Discuss Debut Novel The Berry Pickers


11/15/2023 • 5 months ago

amanda peters

The Cambridge Public Library will welcome Amanda Peters, an award-winning author of Mi’kmaq and European ancestry, for a reading and conversation about her debut novel The Berry Pickers. Peters will be joined in conversation by Grace Talusan, author of The Body Papers, on Thursday, December 7 from 6-7:30 p.m. in the Main Library Lecture Hall. This event is hybrid, and registration is required.

Spanning decades across Maine and Boston, The Berry Pickers captures the tenacity of grief in the years following the fracture of an Indigenous family. The story follows the parallel lives and struggles of two Mi'kmaq siblings in the wake of a traumatic kidnapping in Maine, an event which forever sets Joe and his younger sister Ruthie on diverging paths toward their uncertain futures.

The Berry Pickers has been shortlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and was awarded Barnes and Noble’s 2023 Discover Prize and Barnes and Noble Best Book of the Year. It was also named on the American Bookseller’s Association November 2023 Indie Next List. It has been selected as a Sarah Selects Book Club Pick and an Amazon Best Book of the Month.

A Boston Globe review writes that Peters “presents the Mi’kmaq as struggling to hold on to the things that make them Indian while surrounded by a culture that wants to erase them. But in telling the story from the point-of-view of two Indians — Joe, who is fully aware of his ancestry and the legacy of hurt that stems from it, and Norma, who constantly questions her “parents” on their differences — she recenters the narrative.”

This event is co-sponsored by the Cambridge Public Library Foundation.

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About the Cambridge Public Library:
At the Cambridge Public Library, we welcome all, inspire minds and empower community. We support a Cambridge where everyone has equitable opportunities to learn, people live their best lives and democracy thrives. The Library’s programming provides an opportunity for civic dialogue, conversation, and learning, which includes exploring a wide range of views. Visit our website to learn more. Subscribe to our email list to stay up to date on our events here. 

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