a few words about pankaj. he is one of the most accomplished, acclaimed and versatile writers working in english today. born in north was india in 1969, he writes and reports from london, india and points worldwide. a contributor to the new york review books, the new yorker, "new york times" magazine, bloomberg view, the leonard review books, financial times and plenty of other publications. his books include the novel the romantics, an end to suffering, a novel i've had to teach in my course at georgetown. quotations to the west, from the ruins of empire in 2012, that book led the economist to characterize him as a leading indian public intellectual with a surprising perspective as the air. the turkish novelist and nobel laureate called the book the amazing stories of the grandfathers of today's angry asians. a novelist chose it as one of his books of the year in the financial times. that book won the crossroads award for the best nonfiction in 2013, and in 2014 became the first book by a non-western rider to

pankaj mishra is video taping this evening oh at the video when we -- c-span -- do our questions we ask you to come stand at the microphone to ask questions so he can ware otherwise we will not be able to hear you. i am a librarian here and i am very happy to present john mcwhorter. this is john's third visit. today he is speaking about his most recent book, "talking back, talking black: truths about america's lingua franca" john mcwhorter is on associate professor of english and comparative literature at columbia university and teaches western history, american studies and music. best-selling author, ted speaker, and columnist for "time" magazine, con tributer to the washington post and publications. he is going to be speaking about his most recent book tonight "talking back, talking black." without further ado, john mcwhorter, please. [applause] >> thank you for coming tonight. what i want to talk to you about is the last book i published called "talking back, talking black." i wanted to see if i could make the general public have a more positive view of the dialect that most black am