He is the recipient of the Kidd Prize and was a finalist for the Tennessee Williams Fiction Prize. Nathan Harris grew up in Oregon and was a Michener Fellow at the University of Texas. Oprah added that while she loves engaging readers in conversation around the work of established writers, "there's no greater joy than having the opportunity to help introduce emerging authors to the world." I rooted for them, and feared for them too." When asked why she was drawn to The Sweetness of Water, Oprah said, "As I read this masterful novel I kept thinking-this young 29-year-old is a first-time author, so how did he do this?" She continued, "As the best writers can do, Nathan takes us back in time, and helps us to feel we are right there with Prentiss and Landry as they get their first taste of freedom. The novel also powerfully shows how a fellow human's single act of kindness or cruelty can reverberate for generations to come. Through these characters-and others such as George and Isabelle Walker and their son, Caleb- novelist Harris explores the limits of "freedom" in the era that ushered in Reconstruction and Jim Crow, and spotlights some of the parallels with our current times. When the novel opens, brothers Prentiss and Landry are at last leaving the plantation where they've spent their entire lives, and grappling with what will come next. By then, President Lincoln has issued the Emancipation Proclamation freeing the enslaved. The book is set in the fictional town of Old Ox, Georgia at the very end of the Civil War.
0 kommentar(er)
