HU Receives Grant to Host Big Read Events

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Hampton, VA - Hampton University recently received a $10,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to host a series of Big Read events of the classic novel "A Lesson Before Dying" by Ernest J. Gaines. The events will take place March 25-27 at HU.

HU is one of 127 libraries, municipalities and cultural organizations representing 38 states, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Washington, D.C., to receive this grant. Throughout the next six months, each will host literary events centered on one of 16 selected classic novels.

Published in 1993, "A Lesson Before Dying" tells the story of an uneducated young black man named Jefferson, accused of the murder of a white storekeeper, and Grant Wiggins, a college-educated teacher. Set in 1940s Louisiana, these two men discover a friendship that transforms both their lives.

The novel was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction in 1993. In 1997, it was selected for Oprah's Book Club. In 1999, "A Lesson Before Dying" premiered as an HBO made-for-television movie starring Don Cheadle.

"I think this book is one of our most important works of the 21st century," said Shonda Buchanan, assistant professor of English and principal investigator for the grant. "The ideas and themes Gaines presents, issues of race and class, religion and education, and the death penalty are still highly relevant."

Established in 2007, the Big Read is a NEA initiative designed to restore reading to the center of American culture. This initiative was developed in response to the 2004 NEA report "Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America" which found a critical decline in reading for pleasure exists among American adults.

"One theme we consistently hear back is that the Big Read is not just bringing citizens back to the joy of reading, but also reinvigorating the very idea of community," said NEA Chairman Dana Gioia.

This will be the second time HU has hosted a Big Read event. In April 2007, HU's William R. and Norma B. Harvey Library held one of several area Big Read celebrations discussing "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston as a member of the Virginia Peninsula Literary Consortium.

For more information on the grant or HU's 2008 Big Read events, please contact Shonda Buchanan at (757) 728-6525 or visit www.neabigread.org.