Join Pulitzer Prize-winning author Barbara Kingsolver for a special evening celebrating her new novel, Partita.
In conversation with a local pianist, Kingsolver will reflect on the themes and inspirations behind her latest work, a story of a brief, passionate, life-changing love affair, wrapped up in what might be the greatest romance of all: our eternal human longing for art and beauty. Select live piano performances will complement the conversation, bringing the evening's literary and musical themes to life.
Barbara Kingsolver is the author of ten bestselling works of fiction, including the novels Unsheltered, The Bean Trees, and The Poisonwood Bible, as well as books of poetry, essays, creative nonfiction, and Coyote's Wild Home, a children's book co-authored by Lily Kingsolver. She also collaborated with family members on the influential Animal, Vegatable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. Kingsolver's work has been translated into more than thirty languages and has earned a devoted readership at home and abroad. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and has received numerous awards and honors including the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her novel, Demon Copperhead, the National Humanities Medal, and most recently, the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
Every paid ticket includes a copy of Partita.
With razor-sharp acuity and deep affection, Partita reflects on class barriers, the risk of ambition, and the timeless, life-changing power of art.
Livia Cable has made her peace with her marriage and modest livelihood in the farm country where she grew up, until a shocking phone call from an old lover shakes her to the core. Decades earlier, this man knew her as Livia Bohusz, a music conservatory student uncertain of anything except her passion for music and promise as an extraordinary pianist. His request, now, to see her again stirs up ghosts she's kept at bay for a lifetime.
Shifting between past and present, Livia's decision to meet or reject the reunion means confronting step by step, in memories framed as musical dances, the experiences of childhood, loss, abandonment, self-immolating passion, and perilous attachment to a man who break her belief in love and ruptured the course of her life.
