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Reading and Discussion of Wash: a novel with award-winning author Margaret Wrinkle, accompanied by an exhibition of photography by the artist and a reception

Sponsored by V02 Networx
Wash, written by Margaret Wrinkle, reexamines slavery in ways that challenge contemporary assumptions about race, history and power as it carries the reader from the American South to West Africa and deep into the ancestral stories that reside in the soul.

Crosstown Arts will host Margaret Wrinkle on the evening of Tuesday, October 15, for a reading of Wash, followed by a conversation between the artist and Ladrica Menson-Furr (Director of African and African American Studies at the University of Memphis).  The reading will be accompanied by an installation of Wrinkle’s photography and a reception. A booksigning will follow the discussion.

Published by Grove/Atlantic and accompanied by an exhibition of photographs, Wash has been short listed for the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize and for the Crook’s Corner Prize for exceptional debut novels set in the American South.

Born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, Margaret Wrinkle is a writer, filmmaker, educator and visual artist.  Her award-winning documentary,broken\ground, about the racial divide in her historically conflicted hometown, was featured on NPR’s Morning Edition and was a winner of the National Council on Foundations’ Film Festival.

Copies of Wash will be for sale.

Learn more at margaretwrinkle.com

Press and Praise:

“The voices of the past cannot speak for themselves and must rely on the artists of the future to honor them. It’s a profound responsibility and one that Margaret Wrinkle meets in her brilliant novel, Wash.”
The Wall Street Journal  (pdf)

“Never has a fictionalized window into the relationship between slave and master opened onto such believable territory….Wash unfolds like a dreamy, impressionistic landscape….[A] luminous book.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution  (pdf)

“Books like William Styron’s The Confessions of Nat Turner, Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Edward P. Jones’ The Known World, and Russell Banks’ Cloudsplitter form a kind of Truth and Reconciliation Commission of their own. Add Margaret Wrinkle’s Wash to that illustrious company.”
The Dallas Morning News  (pdf)

“…Wash achieves something extraordinary: a full-fledged confrontation with one of the most difficult aspects of our nation’s history… Wrinkle has given us an honest and important expression of hope… a firm foothold that leads in the direction of truth and reconciliation. We would do well to take this step.”
The Charleston Post and Courier  (pdf)

“A marvel. By turns grim and lyrical, heart-wrenching and hopeful.”
People (4 stars; a People Pick) (pdf)