Author of community book will visit Holland, GVSU

The author of the Community Reading Project book selected for the Grand Valley community will visit West Michigan March 20-21.

Isabel Wilkerson wrote “The Warmth of Other Suns,” an award-winning book about African Americans who migrated from the South in search of better lives. Susan Mendoza, director of Undergraduate Research and Integrative Learning, said the book was chosen, in part, because its narrative stories represent the 6 million people who moved from the South to the North or West, searching for better futures.

Wilkerson will visit Herrick District Library, 300 S. River Ave. in Holland on Tuesday, March 20, at 7 p.m; and GVSU’s Allendale Campus on Wednesday, March 21, 7 p.m., in the Kirkhof Center, Grand River Room. Book signings will follow both presentations; both events are free and open to the public.

Wilkerson, who spent much of her career at the New York Times’ Chicago bureau, won the Pulitzer Prize for individual reporting for her coverage of the 1993 Midwestern floods and a young boy who was responsible for his four siblings. She was the first African American woman to receive the writing award.

For “Warmth of Other Suns,” she interviewed 1,200 people and searched archives to tell the story of the relocation of an entire people. It is Wilkerson’s first book, published in 2010. She is currently professor of journalism and director of narrative nonfiction at Boston University.

“The Warmth of Other Suns” won the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction along with numerous other juried prizes and was named to more than 30 “Best of the Year” lists.

The Community Reading Project now in its seventh year. More information is online at www.gvsu.edu/read.