Myth of post-racial America is topic of Leon Forrest Lecture

Biracial author Danzy Senna to discuss issues of race, identity and gender

Evanston, IL – (Northwestern University) Best-selling author Danzy Senna will speak on “The Myth of Post-Racial America” when she delivers the 2010 Leon Forrest Lecture Thursday, March 4, at Northwestern University.

Senna — whose works include the novel “Symptomatic” and a memoir titled “Where Did you Sleep Last Night?” — writes often on issues of race, identity and gender. Her free and public lecture will take place at 5:15 p.m. in Room 217 of Fisk Hall, 1845 Sheridan Road, on the University’s Evanston campus.

Senna has written extensively on the experience of being mistaken for white, and how those frequent incidents have exposed her to prejudices and intolerance. “Caucasia,” Senna’s debut novel, chronicles the lives of two biracial sisters growing up in racially charged Boston during the 1970s.

The daughter of a black American writer and poet from the Deep South and a mother whose old-money Southern family once owned slaves, Senna has written books that, according to one review, “illuminate personal revelations that are anything but black and white.”

The annual Forrest Lecture honors Leon Forrest, the acclaimed novelist and scholar who taught at Northwestern for more than two decades. It is sponsored by the department of African American studies in Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.

For further information, call (847) 491-5122, e-mail s-denose@northwestern.edu or visit wcas.northwestern.edu.