Grand Valley State University welcomes another guest author to West Michigan as they celebrate the completion of their Ninth Annual Community Read project with The Distance Between Us: A Memoir by Reyna Grande.
The author, who was born in Mexico but immigrated to the USA when she was nine years old, is the winner of many notable awards in literature. Her 2006 novel Across a Hundred Mountains received an American Book Award, the El Premio Aztlan Literary Award, and a Latino Books Into Movies Award. Her second novel, published in 2009, Dancing with Butterflies, received the 2010 International Latino Book Award and was selected by Las Comadres Para Las Americas National Book Club.
Her latest, The Distance Between Us, is a memoir of her family's journey over time and spans two nations with an ever-revolving door of family members. Offering promises of a better life and the hope of a reunion, her father leaves the young family as he departs for the U.S. His plan to bring back wealth and build a home for his family is dashed when her mother is summoned to join her father and must leave the children behind with their stern grandmother.
Rather than spoil the third act of this highly personal record of Grande's family, I'll simply say that the story is rich with the imaginative lengths children will go to distract themselves from the emotions that they feel.
Fittingly enough, the publisher has made this book available in both a Spanish and English version for folks on both sides of the border to read, allowing them to better grasp an understanding of this period of our shared history as told through this wonderful narrative.
Grande will be in the area for two lectures, with the first one commencing at Holland's Herrick Public Library on Monday, Mar. 24 and the second on the next day, Tuesday, Mar. 25 at GVSU's Allendale campus. http://www.gvsu.edu/read/
Admission: Free
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