A Live Stream with Brit Bennett
The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Separated by many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined despite the fact that they have chosen to live in two very different worlds – one black and one white.
Described by critics as ‘utterly mesmerising’, Brit Bennet’s The Vanishing Half has set itself as a standard bearer within modern discussions of race, community and identity. Now, for one exclusive evening, join Bennett in a very special live stream conversation with the novelist and short-story writer Irenosen Okojie, as she talks about her life, her writing, and exploring some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.
Bennett’s work has been featured in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review, and Jezebel. She is one of the National Book Foundation's 2016 5 Under 35 honourees.