Miami Book Fair International, draws top African-American and Caribbean Authors to South Florida

MIAMI,– The 23rd Annual Miami Book Fair International will host a rich assembly of African- American and Caribbean authors between Sunday, Nov. 12 and Sunday, Nov. 19 at the Miami Dade College Wolfson Campus, 300 NE 2nd Ave. in downtown Miami.

MacArthur fellow and Pulitzer Prize winner Edward P. Jones will to take to the stage to headline An Evening with Edward P. Jones on Tuesday, Nov. 14, at 7:30 p.m. in the Chapman Auditorium, located on the second floor of building three.

Jones, who won the Pulitzer for his novel, The Known World, portrays ordinary citizens caught between the old ways of the South and the temptations of the North in his new short story collection, All Aunt Hagar’s Children.

This year’s Book Fair will also host U.S. Senator Barack Obama, author of the bestselling memoir, Dreams from My Father, who will read from his new book, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream. Tickets for this event will be available beginning at noon on Saturday, Nov. 18, before the 6 p.m. event.

Also on stage at the Book Fair is Elizabeth Nunez, PEN American Open Book committee Chair and celebrated author of Prospero’s Daughter, a postcolonial interpretation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest and the fall selection for One Book, One Community.

Over the weekend on Nov. 18 and 19, the Street Fair will feature several noted Afro-Caribbean authors covering a variety of topics. Cultural critic Paul Robeson, Jr., son of the legendary Paul Robeson, will speak about freedom, Erik Calonius will reveal a little-known tale of a Civil War slave ship and former Miami television news reporter Mel Taylor will talk murder.

The Caribbean Voices Program will feature Ramabai Espinet, Lorna Goodison, Deborah Jack, Shara McCallum, Pamela Mordecai, Dawad Philip, Lawrence Scott, Donna Weir-Soley and Mervyn Taylor. Christine Ho will moderate a panel discussion on the topic of Globalization, Diaspora and Caribbean popular culture featuring Mike Alleyne and Keith Nurse.

This year’s Miami Book Fair celebrates the classics and commemorates the universal artistry of Shakespeare and Mozart, among others, while it honors the talent of minority voices and emerging African-American and Caribbean talent.

Here’s a complete list of scheduled African-American and Caribbean authors presenting at this year’s fair.

Raymond Arsenault, Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Justice
Phyllis Baker, African-American Spirituality, Thought and Culture
L.A. Banks, The Forsaken
Erik Calonius, The Wanderer: The Last American Slave Ship and the Conspiracy That Set Its Sails
Colin Channer, Iron Balloons: Hit Fiction from Jamaica’s Calabash Writers Workshop
Michael Eric Dyson, Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster
Christopher John Farley, Before the Legend: The Rise of Bob Marley
Anthony Georges-Pierre, Les Partis Politiques Dans l’Histoire d’Haiti
Tom Graham, Getting Open: The Unknown Story of Bill Garrett and the Integration of College Basketball
Roselyn Howard, Black Seminoles in the Bahamas
Uzodinma Iweala, Beasts of No Nation
Edwardo Jackson, I Do?
Marlon James, Iron Balloons: Hit Fiction from Jamaica’s Calabash Writers Workshop
Marie-Elena John, Unburnable
Lisa Jones Johnson, A Dead Man Speaks: A Novel
Edward P. Jones, All Aunt Hagar’s Children: Stories
Jane Landers, Black Society in Spanish Florida
Lyah Beth Leflore, Cosmopolitan Girl
Annette McCollough Myers, The Shrinking Sands of an African-American Beach
Elizabeth Nunez, Prospero’s Daughter
Geoffrey Philp, Iron Balloons: Hit Fiction from Jamaica’s Calabash Writers Workshop
Roy G. Phillips, Exodus From The Door of No Return: Journey of An American Family
Leonard Pitts, Jr. Becoming Dad: Black Men and The Journey To Fatherhood
Paul Robeson, Jr., A Black Way of Seeing: From “Liberty“ to Freedom
Kimberla Lawson Roby, Changing Faces
Katheryn Russell-Brown, Protecting Our Own: Race, Crime & African Americans
Vickie M. Stringer, Dirty Red
Mel Taylor, Murder by Deadline

There will be a nominal $5 admission fee to the Fair grounds only on Saturday and Sunday of the Street Fair. Fairgoers 18 years of age and younger, Miami Dade College students and employees with identification, Book Fair Friends, volunteers, exhibitors and guests with credentials will be admitted free of charge.

Access to the Fair grounds on Friday is free.

Events during Book Fair week leading up to the weekend Street Fair, including the Evenings With series are free of charge.

In addition, a coupon booklet will be provided to paying fairgoers offering several discounts for items within the Fair.