tanahashi coates, james baldwin, toni morrison. i am already having book signed to him, going to i had the opportunity to meet with edwidge danticat. the first thing i did was hand her a book and say, can you sign this to my son? i am just trying to think of books in art as part of his inheritance. there are things that he can from that he can really sit with and process and develop his own ideas in the future. so i'm really excited for him to read tanahashi as as an adult as he grows up. and i also hope he me and then howard university in the future, though i'm not going to push him, but i would love for him to be a ten. howard leighton host just hotseat myself. why do you write that? james book the fire next time feels like testimony. man. it is because so many voices can be suppressed. so many ideas. a just like a just a narrow understanding of the human experience. but when you read baldwin, your intellect and emotional development is just completely expanded. you are able to see things in a new light and it is required reading

. >> you quote toni morrison ite bit and gather me. >> toni morrison is truly the four mother of every black girl wanting to write, wanting to tell a story. she is one who has won so many awards and accolades. her writing sets the precedent for literature and when i read her book the bluest eye, when i read sulla, beloved, the list goes on and on. i always come back to 20 morrison and even the title itself is a nod to her. she has a quote where she says, she gathered me man. she is a friend of my mind. as i was going through and writing down all of these books and thinking about her life, the fact that i attended the same university, howard university, there were so many things i felt inspired by, her craft, her ability to be so transparent and honest on the page, the way she is so committed to telling the story of african-american history. she is a beacon of light and i don't know what writer isn't familiar with her work and wants to study it and revel in it. i tried my best to honor her work and my love for her. >> this work is pretty honest and transparent. is that tough to do? >> o

very important for me to pay homage to authors like toni morrison, maya angelou. all of these writers who became reflections of myself. host: and the specific quote, she's a friend of mine, she gathers me. the pieces i am, she gathered them and gave them back to me in all the right order. guest: and that is how books feel to you. absolutely. something that brings me great joy and love and understanding. almost like a light post in a lot of ways. host: because you write about having something of a challenging childhood when your immigrant parents from nigeria divorced and your father returned to nigeria, your mother remarried somebody that you couldn't quite relate to. how did books care for you in those difficult times? guest: that is the beauty of the book. i would be able to just look at these books and read them and find a sense of hope. and that is the power of literature. you can see yourself and maybe you don't have a model to follow directly where you are depressed or alone, a book can really offer you support. likely i had great teachers to offer me suppor

i never read any book about slavery in the north was toni morrison's southern.toni morrison wrote fantastic book called a mercy, which is set in new york state that. it's not as well known as some of it. it's called a mercy. okay, rc y and so that kind of piqued my interest while you were talking, but then when you talked about individual, you were working with and it wasn't a kumbaya moment i'm fascinated by how a person had nothing to do with the past but they affected your you have a problem connecting or feel some kind of tension. okay it's almost one of those put your self in your other of the shoes or the foot. if i met somebody who we were enslaved, my cousins and family members in the past, how would i feel about them? so i would. how would you feel about them? i was grappling with it and still because put myself in those shoes and i would be disingenuous saying i'm not affected and. so that which leads to my point, which is when you say you don't feel guilty but you feel responsible. which kind of comes in the form a reparation, how do you you go on wit

you know, when friend toni morrison said that that, i mean, if toni morrison said it is true. it when she said it you know, it was about it was it was halfway serious and halfway making fun of me where all talked and kind of laughed around, but i took it as a great compliment. and one that i owed my ancestors because. i grew up in a white southern working family where my grandfather owned, a country store and all of his customers were black, just about. and he loved and they loved him. and. they couldn't afford food. and there no food stamps. there was no medicare. there was, no medicaid. if they were or actively looking for a job. he told to take whatever they needed because anybody was willing to work desert to feed their children and. he just wrote it down in a book and he said if you can come back and play me someday, do it. and. but it's amazing to coordinate talking about this on the way in because he read a story of my stopping on the way into. a town in ohio that had one of these famous barbershop like you've seen them all the barber shop shows on tv. what goes on the

and speak about toni morrison. the toni morrison we have her son here in the audience today continuing the legacy. and continuing the legacy he is publishing a new magazine called tar baby. first two episodes are coming out, first ones coming out in the spring. that's the second issue. the issue right there. where can they two oh enter in chief? no one told me. tennessee reid is the editor in chief of tar baby. let me engage in shameless, shameless promotion. where can they find tar baby in a few months? it hits the stands in january, so purchase that magazine in 2024. we have book bands but a lot of assault rifles. we have criminals running for office promoting conspiracies about haitian immigrants eating pets. but librarians and teachers losing their job for saying scary words like diverse city safe space. are you guys okay? do i trigger you? all right? all right. i say equity or inclusivity? oops. i said my bad. we have what you think a qualified indian-american woman running for president who has to be near-per

very important for me to pay homage to authors like toni morrison, maya angelou. of these writers who became reflections of myself. host: and the specific quote, she's a friend of mine, she gathers me. the pieces i am, she gathered them and gave them back to me in all the right order. guest: and that is how books feel to you. absolutely. something that brings me great joy and love and understanding. almost like a light post in a lot of ways. host: because you write about having something of a challenging childhood when your immigrant parents from nigeria divorced and your father returned to nigeria, your mother remarried somebody that you couldn't quite relate to. how did books care for you in those difficult times? guest: that is the beauty of the book. i would be able to just look at these books and read them and find a sense of hope. and that is the power of literature. you can see yourself and maybe you don't have a model to follow directly where you are depressed or alone, a book can really offer you support. likely i had great teachers to offer me support as

toni morrison, of course, is one of my preeminent storytellers. and then i think people like ernest gaines was one of the first people who gave me permission to tell stories. he was my mentor long before met him to these country story is a lot of his country stories except for miss pittman, or were about men. but i learned how to tell good country story from from ernest gaines. those those are certainly some of my favorites as well never called her the grand team i am going to start saying that now where to. i actually think i'd like to with this cover photo patsy i feel she kind of starts so much of the story for you as well. she seems so fascinating and powerful to me. the fact that she owned land. i think she was able to buy her husband out of slavery. yeah, yeah. tell us how you discovered as your land, aunt. yeah. so, patsy, her mother's who i'm talking about in that passage grandma aggie, when i was doing research for this book, i thought that i would probably begin and end my grandmother was the you i've you know, you feel like you know eve

toni morrison once said about the bluest eye that past a certain point all she had was fidelity to her own interest and sense of taste and i think that ultimately like since especially this is a book that is so much and so close to my own almost death i it naturally invites some more questions about what will this book look like to people when i am gone, the first line of my bio is julian randall, a living, queer black poet, and you'd be i'd be lying if i said i haven't thought about what is going to be the edit of that when that is no longer functionally true. but i know that because of that question it was harrowing to deal with but i also know that because of that question, i've come away with the book i wanted to write. i've come away with the book that says the things that i wanted to say. months have passed i barely regret, not including sopranos essay. it wasn't ready it wasn't. but yes, i think that like know you think about it in that sense of just like what am i fidelity to my own taste. how many of previous books that they are pulling this useful strategy and sales data from

kurt vonnegut, tony morrison, steven king. these are just a few of the authors whose books have been banned from florida public school libraries because of the censorship laws passed by extreme republican politicians. president eisenhower once warned, quote, don't join the book burners. don't be afraid to go in the library and read every book. but according to the florida department of education, more than 700 books were banned from libraries in public school districts last year after governor ron desantis signed florida's extreme book ban law. there is nothing americans hate more than politicians who want to take away their freedoms. yet republican politicians want to take away the freedom of women to get an abortion, they want to take away the freedom of guy and lesbian americans to -- green bay and lesbian -- gay and lesbian americans to marry their partners and now they want to take away freedom at the library. banning books isn't just an attack on personal freedom, it's an attack on american values that we all believe in.

previous recipients are tony morrison, art speigleman and rita dove. [ applause ] tonight's honoree hasme of the most significant literature of the 21st century, ranging from fiction to poetry to investigative journalism to science writing. here to present the medal this evening is sam stoloff. sam is the president and principle of the francis golden literary agency founded by francis golden in 1977. sam joined the agency in 1997 and is a member of the board of directors of the association of american literary agents. gives me great pleasure to welcome sam stoloff. [ applause ] ♪♪ ♪♪ >> they didn't tell me when i first became a literary agent that this was part of the job description or i might have chosen a different line of work. we agents are more used to hiding comfortably in the acknowledgement section of our authors' books rather than standing up on stage introducing them. i owe my place here on this stage to barbara, of course. also to francis golden, the founder of the agency i now head. [ applause ] who some of you, of course, knew. when barbara was looking for a literary agent