Photo of Brit Bennett

Ten Evenings

Brit Bennett

“She hadn’t realized how long it takes to become somebody else, or how lonely it can be living in a world not meant for you.”

Brit Bennett, The Vanishing Half

Brit Bennett is the author of the critically acclaimed #1 New York Times bestseller The Vanishing Half, a riveting, expansive, and emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing—provocative, compassionate, and wise.

Twin sisters, inseparable as children, ultimately choose to live in two very different worlds, one black and one white. Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, The Vanishing Half looks well beyond issues of race, considering the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person’s decisions, desires, and expectations, exploring the multiple reasons people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.

Born and raised in Southern California, Brit Bennett graduated from Stanford University and earned her MFA in fiction at the University of Michigan, where she won a Hopwood Award in Graduate Short Fiction as well as the 2014 Hurston/Wright Award for College Writers. She is a National Book Foundation “5 under 35” honoree. Her essays are featured in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review, and Jezebel. Her debut novel, The Mothers was a critically acclaimed #1 New York Times-bestseller.

The Vanishing Half is an utterly mesmerising novel, which gripped me from the first word to the last. It seduces with its literary flair, surprises with its breath-taking plot twists, delights with its psychological insights, and challenges us to consider the corrupting consequences of racism on different communities and individual lives. I absolutely loved this book.”

Bernardine Evaristo, Booker Prize winning author of Girl, Woman, Other

Books

Copies of The Vanishing Half with signed bookplates are available from White Whale Bookstore

Sponsored by Carlow University

With additional support from Aurora Reading Club

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett book cover

WHEN

Monday, September 20, 2021
Virtual Event, watch anytime online for one week

TICKETS

Virtual Pass: $15
$10 student tickets are available with promo code LS22STUDENT
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Video links will be emailed to all ticket holders on the day of the scheduled lecture. Closed captioning will be available.
Community access tickets are available if cost is a barrier to view this lecture. If you’d like to request a community access ticket please email us at info@pittsburghlectures.org.

WHERE

Online

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