Books & Books, Miami Book Fair, Harvard Book Store and Politics and Prose  present…

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In this collection of rich and textured stories about crossing borders, both real and imagined, Sleeping Alone asks one of the fundamental questions of our times: What is the toll of feeling foreign in one’s land, to others, or even to oneself? A cast of misfits, young and old, single and coupled, even entire family units, confront startling changes wrought by difficult circumstances or harrowing choices. 

These stories span the world, moving from Maine to Sri Lanka, from Dublin to Philadelphia, paying exquisite attention to the dance between the intimate details of our lives and our public selves. 

Whether Ru Freeman, author of the novel On Sal Mal Lane, is capturing secrets kept by siblings in Sri Lanka, or the life of itinerants in New York City, she renders the nuances of her characters’ lives with real sensitivity, and imbues them with surprising dignity and grace.

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Ru Freeman is the author of A Disobedient Girl and On Sal Mal Lane, and the editor of Extraordinary Rendition: American Writers on Palestine and Indivisible: Global Leaders on Shared Security. She directs the Artist Network at Narrative 4.

Natashia Deón is a two-time NAACP Image Award Nominee for Outstanding Literature, a practicing criminal attorney, and author of the critically acclaimed and widely-reviewed novels, The Perishing and GRACE. A PEN America Fellow, Deón has also been awarded fellowships and residencies at Yale, Prague's Creative Writing Program, Dickinson House in Belgium and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. She is a professor of creative writing at Yale, UCLA, and Antioch University.

Dolen Perkins-Valdez is the New York Times bestselling author of Take My Hand (Berkley/Penguin Random House 2022). Her previous novels include Wench (2010) and Balm (2015). Dolen is the current Chair of the Board of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation and is Associate Professor in the Literature Department at American University in Washington, DC.

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Sleeping Alone: An Evening with Ru Freeman, Natashia Deón and Dolen Perkins-Valdez