About this Event
“There was one every generation, a seer who keeps the stories.”
Luz “Little Light” Lopez, a tea leaf reader and laundress, is left to fend for herself after her older brother, Diego, a snake charmer and factory worker, is run out of town by a violent white mob. As Luz navigates 1930’s Denver on her own, she begins to have visions that transport her to her Indigenous homeland in the nearby Lost Territory. Luz recollects her ancestors’ origins, how her family flourished and how they were threatened. She bears witness to the sinister forces that have devastated her people and their homelands for generations. In the end, it is up to Luz to save her family stories from disappearing into oblivion.
Written in Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s singular voice, the wildly entertaining and complex lives of the Lopez family fill the pages of this multigenerational western saga. Woman of Light is a transfixing novel about survival, family secrets, and love, filled with an unforgettable cast of characters, all of whom are just as special, memorable, and complicated as our beloved heroine, Luz.
Copies of Woman of Light will be available for purchase at the event. A book signing will follow the conversation.
This event will take place in the Special Events Center of the Austin Central Library.
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ABOUT KALI FAJARDO-ANSTINE: Kali Fajardo-Anstine is from Denver, Colorado. She is the author of Sabrina & Corina, a finalist for the National Book Award, the PEN/Bingham Prize, The Clark Prize, The Story Prize, the Saroyan International Prize and winner of an American Book Award. She is the 2021 recipient of the Addison M. Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her work has been honored with the Denver Mayor’s Award for Global Impact in the Arts and the Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association Reading The West Award. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Harper’s Bazaar, ELLE, O the Oprah Magazine, The American Scholar, Boston Review, and elsewhere. Kali has received fellowships from MacDowell, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and Tin House. She earned her MFA from the University of Wyoming and has lived across the country, from Durango, Colorado, to Key West, Florida. She is the 2022/2023 Endowed Chair of Creative Writing at Texas State University.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Austin Central Library, Austin Public Library, 710 West Cesar Chavez Street, Austin, United States
USD 0.00