Monday, April 13 - Paule Marshall

Monday at noon I am so very pleased to welcome a writer whose lifetime of creativity and engagement with people and history has earned her a MacArthur genius grant, all the prizes there are, and a place in contemporary letters which she pretty much created for herself, filling it with five novels and two short story collections and more. As it happens, Paule Marshall’s 1959 first novel Brown Girl, Brownstones attracted the attention of the writer who became a mentor to her, the legendary Langston Hughes. In her new memoir, Triangular Road, Ms. Marshall revisits journeys in life and art which demarcate that road, beginning with a singular trip accompanying Hughes on a State Department tour of Europe in 1965. The publication of her memoir, based on talks given at Harvard University on the theme of “Bodies of Water” and their impact on black history and culture in America is a real occasion --- the book a startling, honest, evocative and provocative telling of a life and lives. Listen in at noon, Monday on KPFK 90.7 FM.