On Wednesday, April 17, at 12:-1:30 p.m., in Muntz 111, the RWC community is invited to take part in a campus discussion of Ernest J. Gaines’s great novel A Lesson Before Dying. The Greater Cincinnati Community, in support of an initiative called “On the Same Page,” is encouraging all citizens to read the book this spring. The University of Cincinnati is participating in this project.
RWC will have oral readings of the book April 8-16 in the Muntz lobby for all to hear.
The book can be purchased in the RWC Bookstore, and copies are on hold in the library as well. This novel was chosen from 145 nominations from individuals throughout the Cincinnati region.
A Lesson Before Dying is a story of a poorly educated black man sentenced to death by an all white jury for a murder he did not commit. The book was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and won a National Book Critics Circle Award in 1993.
The book has several themes, including racial discrimination, healing, human dignity, the power of education and capital punishment. The book is said to speak to all of us in efforts to bring racial healing to the City of Cincinnati.
Ernest J. Gaines will speak in the Shoemaker Center at the Clifton campus on Tuesday, April 23, at 2:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the University and the Cincinnati community.