Kaitlyn Greenidge in conversation with Obden Mondesir about Libertie, a novel based on oral histories of Weeksville, Brooklyn.
About this event
PKaitlyn Greenidge in conversation with Obden Mondesir about Libertie, a novel based on oral histories of Weeksville, Brooklyn.
“Coming of age in a free Black community in Reconstruction-era Brooklyn, Libertie Sampson is all too aware that her purposeful mother, a practicing physician, has a vision for their future together: Libertie is to go to medical school and practice alongside her. But Libertie, drawn more to music than science, feels stifled by her mother’s choices and is hungry for something else—is there really only one way to have an autonomous life? And she is constantly reminded that, unlike her light-skinned mother, Libertie will not be able to pass for white. When a young man from Haiti proposes to Libertie and promises she will be his equal on the island, she accepts, only to discover that she is still subordinate to him and all men. As she tries to parse what freedom actually means for a Black woman, Libertie struggles with where she might find it—for herself and for generations to come.
Inspired by the life of one of the first Black female doctors in the United States and rich with historical detail, Kaitlyn Greenidge’s new and immersive novel will resonate with readers eager to understand our present through a deep, moving, and lyrical dive into our past.”
Obden Mondésir is the Associate Director of the Barnard Archives and Special Collections. As the Oral History Manager at the Weeksville Heritage Center, he led oral history projects including Meals as Collective Memory and the Black Joy project. As Outreach Archivist at Queens College, he managed the oral history component of the SEEK documentation project that collected interviews from staff and alumni about the SEEK rebellion where faculty and students demanded self-determination and representation within the spirit of third worldism. (SEEK is a program designed to meet the needs of students who are considered to be economically disadvantaged and academically underprepared.) Obden was a 2015 fellow for the Queens Memory Project and 2017 West African Research Center fellow.
Kaitlyn Greenidge is the author of Libertie, a New York Times Critics Choice for 2021. Her debut novel was We Love You, Charlie Freeman (Algonquin Books), one of the New York Times Critics' Top 10 Books of 2016. Her writing has appeared in Vogue, Glamour, the Wall Street Journal, Elle, Buzzfeed, Transition Magazine, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Believer, American Short Fiction and other places. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Whiting Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University and the Guggenheim Foundation. She is currently Features Director at Harper’s Bazaar as well as a contributing writer for The New York Times.
Learn more about Spring 2023's Oral History and Fiction: A Book Club
Image Description: Book cover of Libertie, with the outlined figure of a Black woman set against a lush floral background.
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