Curdella Forbes (A Tall History of Sugar) and SJ Sindu (Blue-Skinned Gods) discuss their latest novels, exploring ideas of face value and faith, love and relationships, and the occasionally mystical nature of humanity itself, spanning continents to provide expansive examinations of our deeply interconnected world. In conversation with Amanda Korman.
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Thanks to our bookseller for this event, Fountain Bookstore. Attendees and supporters of the Festival are eligible for a 20% discount on speakers’ titles linked above until Thursday, March 31, 2022, using coupon code: YAYVABOOK22
“Forbes’ novel, rich in metaphors and biblical and fairy-tale allusions, explores the cyclical nature of birth and death, and the overwhelming and terrifying power of love. It is also a forceful critique of colonialism… Born to this complicated heritage, Moshe and Arrienne discover their voices in art and social protest as Jamaica grapples with independence and identity. A fascinating post-colonial blend of romance, social history, and myth.”—Booklist, starred review
“Kalki’s life as a blue-skinned child deity at first seems rather romantic. Raised to believe he is the ’10th incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu,’ he heals the sick at his family’s ashram in Tamil Nadu, India… It is impossible not to be hypnotized by the tenderness of these opening scenes. But relatively early in the novel Kalki, narrating in adulthood as a university lecturer in Toronto, breaks the illusion of his own divinity—and any illusion that his childhood had been blessed… In attending to the fine aftershocks of this loss and many others to come, Sindu masterfully renders how our environments bake into our skin.”—The New York Times
Sponsors
Virginia Festival of the Book staff, volunteers, partners, and attendees appreciate all of our sponsors. It is their crucial support, along with individual donors, that allows us to present the 2022 Virginia Festival of the Book almost completely free of charge. We appreciate the generous commitment from our Premier Sponsor, The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, and these major sponsors: Michelle and David Baldacci, Dominion Energy, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
