Program Highlight:
Bounce the Reader into It.
Stephen Corey and Mindy Wilson of The Georgia Review will bring sample opening pages from some short... Read more
Lillian Smith Book Awards
Decatur Library Stage Sunday, 2:30 pm - 3:15 pm
From her home on Screamer Mountain overlooking Clayton, Georgia, Lillian Smith wrote and spoke openly against racism and segregation long before the civil rights era. A conservatory-trained musician, Smith began her literary career writing for a journal titled Pseudopodia (1936), The North Georgia Review (1937-1941), and South Today (1942-1945). Smith's novel Strange Fruit (1944), is the tragic story of a white man, a black woman, murder, and a small-town lynching. Due to its controversial language and sexual undercurrents, the book was banned in Boston as obscene. Buoyed by the notoriety and attendant publicity, Strange Fruit went on to sell over three million copies and to be translated into fourteen languages. For more than three decades, in fiction and non-fiction, Smith continued to develop her ongoing theme - that while segregation demeaned and destroyed the lives of blacks, it also poisoned the souls of whites. She was a frequent contributor to The New York Times, The Nation, and Life magazine, and her name has become synonymous with outstanding writing about Georgia and the rest of the American South. Since 1968, the Southern Regional Council's "Lillian Smith Book Awards" have honored serious, well-crafted books that contribute to a better understanding of human rights and other social issues. The Southern Regional Council joined with the University of Georgia Libraries in 2004, co-sponsoring this award. In 2007, the Georgia Center for the Book joined these two groups as a co-sponsor.
Presenters:
| Ariela J. Gross , Author | |
| Bob Zellner , Author | |
| Constance Curry , Author |
