Haitian drummer Geraud Dimanche will perform at Hope College as part of the Big Read Holland Area on Friday, Nov. 4, at 7:30 p.m. in the Concert Hall of the Jack H. Miller Center for Musical Arts.
The public is invited. Admission is free.
Haitian music and dancing will be on display through the performance of drummer Dimanche. The concert is sponsored by the college’s Department of Music.
The community-wide Big Read Holland Area is developed around the theme “An entire community reading one book together,” and this year is focusing on Edwidge Danticat’s memoir “Brother, I’m Dying.” The Big Read Holland Area is featuring a variety of public events between Tuesday, Nov. 1, and Thursday, Nov. 17, to provide historical, literary and cultural context as well as to engage the community, in addition to including book discussions hosted by multiple community organizations.
Danticat’s parents immigrated to the United States from Haiti when she was two. She initially stayed in Haiti, where she was raised by her Uncle Joseph and his wife Tante Denise in the Bel Air neighborhood of Port-au-Prince until she was able to join her parents when she was 12. As described by the reader’s guide provided by neabigread.org, when “Brother, I’m Dying” opens, “the author is a grown woman living in Miami who learns, over the course of a single day, that her father is dying and that she is pregnant with her first child. Just weeks later, her beloved Uncle Joseph seeks asylum in the U.S. and experiences brutal treatment. Told through Danticat’s singular voice, these events set the stage for a powerful tale of loss and remembrance.” Published in 2007, “Brother, I’m Dying” received the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and was a finalist for the National Book Award.
The Big Read Holland Area is funded through a grant to the college through the Big Read initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in partnership with Arts Midwest. Area partners with the college include Herrick District Library, Howard Miller Library, Western Theological Seminary, Holland Museum, cultureWorks, Future PREP’d Ottawa Area Intermediate School District, and several other area schools, churches, businesses and other community organizations.
More information about the Big Read Holland Area events and the book, including a complete schedule, is available online at blogs.hope.edu/thebigread/, facebook.com/bigreadholland/ and twitter.com/bigreadholland.
The Jack H. Miller Center for Musical Arts is located at 221 Columbia Ave., between Ninth and 10th streets