ICYMI: The Last Week in Black Writing and Culture (2/28-3/4)

This month is Women's History Month, so this month our blog will showcase a series of posts related to women's history. If you don't already know, read about how March became Women's History Month. 

This week, author Toni Morrison was awarded the 2016 PEN/Saul Bellow award for achievement in American fiction.

Novelist Zadie Smith has announced the release of her newest novel titled Swing Time, about two brown girls who dream of becoming dancers. Her first novel Teeth won the Whitbread First Novel Award, the Guardian First Book Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction, and the Commonwealth Writers’ First Book Award. This will be Smith's fifth novel. On March 31st, New York University will host Zadie Smith for a conversation on her life in publishing.

In her newest book, The Book of Memory, Zimbabwean author Petina Gappah writes about a woman in prison who has been sentenced to death who is recounting her life story from memory. "Memory has albinism," Gappah says. "I wanted to say something about race without really saying anything about race."

Despite some opposition, a bill was passed to name a post office in Winston-Salem, North Carolina after author and civil rights activist Maya Angelou.

Ta-Nehisi Coates will speak at Howard University on Charter Day, the day in which the historically black university was founded. Coates attended Howard in the mid 1990's and credits the school with training him intellectually.