As a part of the Langston Hughes Festival, The City College of New York will be honoring Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat on Friday, November 18, 2011.

In the morning, there will be a panel discussion entitled “Haiti in the Age of Danticat,” with speakers Régine LaTortue (Brooklyn College), Maria Rice Bellamy (College of Staten Island-CUNY), Kaiama L. Glover (Barnard College/Columbia University), Jean-Yves Plaisir (Borough of Manhattan Community College-CUNY), and Millery Polyné (Gallatin School of
Individualized Study/New York University). This symposium will take place from 11:00am to 1:00pm at Shepard Hall 250.

In the evening, the president of the college will present the writer with the 2011 Langston Hughes Festival medal. There will also be readings of Langston Hughes’ The Emperor of Haiti and Guy Régis Jr.’s The Father. This event will take place at 6:30pm at Aaron Davis Hall at The City College of New York. City College is located at Convent Avenue at West 135 Street in New York.

The Langston Hughes Medal is awarded to highly distinguished writers from throughout the African American diaspora for their distinguished contributions to the arts and letters. Among past recipients of this award are James Baldwin, Gwendolyn Brooks, Toni Cade Bambara, Paule Marshall, Toni Morrison, Ralph W. Ellison, Alice Walker, Maya Angelou, August Wilson, Chinua Achebe, Derek Walcott, and Octavia Butler, to name a few.

To attend this event, please RSVP to the director of the Langston Hughes Festival, Dr. Gordon Thompson at 212-650-6353, or by email at lhf@ccny.cuny.edu

[Many thanks to Vanessa K. Valdés for bringing this item to our attention.]

For more information on this event, see http://www1.ccny.cuny.edu/prospective/lhf/index.cfm

For photo (and review of Create Dangerously), see http://caribbeanreviewofbooks.com/crb-archive/23-september-2010/create-dangerously/