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May
04

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah and Tayari Jones discuss "Chain-Gang All-Stars"

FREE

Date and time

Thu, May 4, 2023
7:00 PM — 8:00 PM

Location

First Baptist Church Decatur
308 Clairemont Ave.
Decatur, GA 30030
Adjei-Brenyah & Jones discuss this explosive, hotly-anticipated debut novel from the New York Times bestselling author of "Friday Black."

Join the Georgia Center for the Book and Conversations at First Baptist for an evening with authors Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah and award-winning author and the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Creative Writing at Emory University, Tayari Jones, for a discussion of Adjei-Brenyah's Chain-Gang All-Stars. This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required.

TRAFFIC INFORMATION:

There is construction at the intersection of Clairemont Ave. and Commerce Dr. next to the Church, and traffic in the area has been heavy. Please allow a little extra time for you to arrive and park at the Church.

If you would like to pre-order a copy of Chain-Gang All-Stars to be picked up at the event that evening, or if you would like signed copies mailed to you, our friends at Charis Books and More have provided a link for you to do so: PURCHASE

We are committed to a safe environment. For the safety of our invited speakers, staff, and all attendees, we respectfully request that masks be worn in the venue for the duration of the event. We are currently limiting the capacity of the venue to promote social distancing, so registration is required.

ABOUT CHAIN-GANG ALL-STARS

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR • Two top women gladiators fight for their freedom within a depraved private prison system not so far-removed from America’s own in this explosive, hotly-anticipated debut novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Friday Black • “One of the most exciting young writers in America.” —George Saunders, best-selling author of Liberation Day and Lincoln in the Bardo

She felt their eyes, all those executioners…

Loretta Thurwar and Hamara “Hurricane Staxxx” Stacker are the stars of Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly-popular, highly-controversial, profit-raising program in America’s increasingly dominant private prison industry. It’s the return of the gladiators and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom.

In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death-matches for packed arenas with righteous protestors at the gates. Thurwar and Staxxx, both teammates and lovers, are the fan favorites. And if all goes well, Thurwar will be free in just a few matches, a fact she carries as heavily as her lethal hammer. As she prepares to leave her fellow Links, she considers how she might help preserve their humanity, in defiance of these so-called games, but CAPE’s corporate owners will stop at nothing to protect their status quo and the obstacles they lay in Thurwar’s path have devastating consequences.

Moving from the Links in the field to the protestors to the CAPE employees and beyond, Chain-Gang All-Stars is a kaleidoscopic, excoriating look at the American prison system’s unholy alliance of systemic racism, unchecked capitalism, and mass incarceration, and a clear-eyed reckoning with what freedom in this country really means from a “new and necessary American voice” (Tommy Orange, The New York Times Book Review).

If you would like to pre-order a copy of Chain-Gang All-Stars to be picked up at the event that evening, or if you would like signed copies mailed to you, our friends at Charis Book and More have provided a link for you to do so: PURCHASE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

NANA KWAME ADJEI-BRENYAH is the New York Times-bestselling author of Friday Black. His work has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Esquire, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. He was a National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” honoree, the winner of the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and the Saroyan Prize, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Award for Best First Book, along with many other honors. Raised in Spring Valley, New York, he now lives in the Bronx.

Photo: Alex M. Philip

ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER

New York Times best-selling author Tayari Jones is the author of four novels, most recently An American Marriage. Published in 2018, An American Marriage is an Oprah’s Book Club Selection and also appeared on Barack Obama’s summer reading list as well as his year-end roundup. The novel was awarded the Women’s Prize for Fiction (formerly known as the Orange Prize), Aspen Words Prize and an NAACP Image Award. It has been published in two dozen countries. Jones, a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow, has also been a recipient of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, United States Artist Fellowship, NEA Fellowship, and Radcliffe Institute Bunting Fellowship. Her third novel, Silver Sparrow, was added to the NEA Big Read Library of classics in 2016. Jones is a graduate of Spelman College, University of Iowa, and Arizona State University. She is an Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University and the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Creative Writing at Emory University.

Photo: Nina Subin

ABOUT THE SERIES

Conversations is a continuing series of Author Events at First Baptist Church Decatur. Conversations at First Baptist Church Decatur is pleased to partner with the Georgia Center for the Book and others in the Decatur area to host public dialogues that engage the minds and connect the spirits of our community, at the intersection of faith, purpose, and values.

About the Bookseller

Charis Books and More is the South's oldest independent feminist bookstore, celebrating radical and independent voices in the heart of the South since 1974! Located in Decatur, Georgia, part of the metro-Atlanta area, Charis is also school store partner for Agnes Scott College. Charis specializes in diverse and unique children's books, feminist and cultural studies books, books on anti-racism and ending white supremacy, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer fiction and non-fiction.

184 S. Candler St. Decatur, GA 30030 | 404.524.0304

CharisBooksandMore.com

Date and time

Thu, May 4, 2023
7:00 PM — 8:00 PM

Location

First Baptist Church Decatur
308 Clairemont Ave.
Decatur, GA 30030

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