CPL Presents: Johnisha Matthews Levi, the author of Numbers Up (Main Library)
For four decades, Johnisha Matthews Levi believed a conventional story about her birth, picturing her happy parents at the hospital together. While sorting through her late mother's belongings, however, she discovered a document indicating that her father was instead serving time in Lorton Correctional Complex. This revelation, along with rumors about an FBI investigation of her deceased parents' "private business," leads Levi to unearth the hidden history of her family. She ties this story to public policy, demonstrating how state lottery legalization and the War on Drugs disrupted the Black institutions and communities in Washington, DC. Registration is required.
CPL Presents: Valeria Luiselli (Main/Virtual)
Join the Cambridge Public Library in celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month by welcoming Valeria Luiselli—the acclaimed author of several books, including Tell Me How It Ends and Lost Children Archive, the recipient of the 2021 Dublin Literary Award—for a reading from her new novel, Beginning Middle End.
In Beginning Middle End, which received starred reviews from Publisher's Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, and Booklist, Luiselli returns to the road novel form which she innovated in Lost Children Archive. Called "a beautiful, maybe perfect, novel," Beginning Middle End follows a mother and daughter on a quest to start over and find for themselves a new story, in the process weaving "together four generations of women through archaeology, mythology, and the natural world" (W Magazine).
After reading from her work, Luiselli will sit in conversation with Eloisa Amezcua, an award-winning poet, translator, and author of Fighting Is Like a Wife. An audience Q&A and book signing will follow.
Registration is required.
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