Author Talk: Honorée Fanonne Jeffers | MAKING BLACK AMERICA: THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE

PBS Books, in collaboration with the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), is pleased to host a conversation award-winning Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, author of The Love Songs of WEB DuBois in connection with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s latest documentary MAKING BLACK AMERICA: THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE, on October 5 at 8pm ET| 5pm PT. In her latest book, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers chronicles the journey of one American family from the centuries of the colonial slave trade through the Civil Rights Movement to today’s society. Through the conversation, you’ll learn about her work and process, as well as themes and topics that connect to MAKING BLACK AMERICA: THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE. ABOUT HONORÉE FANONNE JEFFERS Honorée Fanonne Jeffers is a fiction writer, poet, and essayist. She is the author of five poetry collections, including the 2020 collection The Age of Phillis, which won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Poetry and the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, was longlisted for the National Book Award for Poetry, and was a finalist for the PEN/Voelcker Award, the George Washington Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She was a contributor to The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race, edited by Jesmyn Ward, and has been published in the Kenyon Review, Iowa Review, and other literary publications. Jeffers was elected into the American Antiquarian Society, whose members include fourteen U.S. presidents, and is Critic at Large for Kenyon Review. She is a professor and chair of the English Department at University of Oklahoma. The Love Songs of W. E. B. Du Bois is her first novel and was a New York Times bestseller, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, longlisted for the National Book Award, shortlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, a Finalist for the Kirkus Prize for Fiction, longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize, and an Oprah Book Club Pick. ABOUT MAKING BLACK AMERICA: THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE MAKING BLACK AMERICA: THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE is a four-part series that explores Black Americans’ Centuries-Long History of Establishing Communities and Attaining Social, Political and Economic Success in the face of racial segregation; the documentary premieres on PBS stations across the country starting on Tuesday, October 4 at 9pm ET (check your local listing). In this latest series from the acclaimed Harvard scholar and documentarian, Gates and director Stacey L. Holman chronicle the vast social networks and organizations created by and for Black people beyond the reach of the “White gaze.” During the series, Gates sits with noted scholars, politicians, cultural leaders, and old friends to discuss this world behind the color line and what it looks like today. MAKING BLACK AMERICA takes viewers into an extraordinary world that showcased Black people’s ability to collectively prosper, defy white supremacy and define Blackness in ways that transformed America itself. Explore our website: https://www.pbsbooks.org Sign up for our newsletter: https://www.pbsbooks.org/subscribe/