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American Spy: Book Talk with Lauren Wilkinson and Glory Edim

American Spy

Book Talk with Lauren Wilkinson and Glory Edim

 

Tuesday, March 19, 2019, 7:30pm

 

Join The Africa Center for a book talk with author Lauren Wilkinson and Glory Edim (Founder of Well-Read Black Girl) about Wilkinson’s debut novel, AMERICAN SPY (Random House).

Lauren Wilkinson’s AMERICAN SPY (Random House), opens with an attempted assassination: Marie Mitchell, a single mother of twin boys living in a quiet suburban neighborhood, wakes to find an armed stranger in her bedroom. But Marie isn’t surprised; it seems her past is finally catching up with her. Flashback to 1986: It’s the heart of the Cold War, and Marie is working as an intelligence officer with the FBI. She’s brilliant and dedicated to her job, but she’s also a young black woman working in an old boys’ club, and her career has stalled out; she’s overlooked for every high-profile squad, and her days are filled with monotonous paperwork. So when she’s given the opportunity to join a shadowy task force aimed at undermining Thomas Sankara, the charismatic, revolutionary president of Burkina Faso, whose Communist ideology has made him a target for American intervention, she says yes. Inspired by true events—Thomas Sankara is known as “Africa’s Che Guevara”—AMERICAN SPY knits together a gripping spy thriller, a heartbreaking family drama, and a passionate romance, and takes readers on an emotional journey from Queens to West Africa to Martinique.

Lauren Wilkinson will be signing copies of AMERICAN SPY following the talk.

 


 

Doors open at 7:15pm

Talk at 7:30pm

Tickets: free with RSVP

 

For more information and to reserve a place, please visit our Eventbrite page.

Lauren Wilkinson earned an MFA in fiction and literary translation from Columbia University, and has taught writing at Columbia and the Fashion Institute of Technology. She was a 2013 Center for Fiction Emerging Writers Fellow, and has also received support from the MacDowell Colony and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program. Wilkinson grew up in New York and lives on the Lower East Side. This is her first novel.

Glory Edim is the founder of Well-Read Black Girl, a Brooklyn-based book club and online community that celebrates the uniqueness of Black literature and sisterhood. In fall 2017, she organized the first-ever Well-Read Black Girl Literary Festival. She has worked as a creative strategist for over ten years at startups and cultural institutions, including Kickstarter, The Webby Awards and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She received the 2017 Innovator’s Award from the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes for her work as a literary advocate. She serves on the board of New York City’s Housing Works Bookstore and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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