From PUSH (NY Times bestseller) to PRECIOUS (Oscar nominee) - An Evening with Sapphire
Sapphire is the author of Push, the story of an overweight, African-American teenage mother named Claireece “Precious” Jones, who endures physical, sexual and emotional abuse at the hands of her parents.
(Media-Newswire.com) - Sapphire is the author of Push, the story of an overweight, African-American teenage mother named Claireece “Precious” Jones, who endures physical, sexual and emotional abuse at the hands of her parents. But when Precious, pregnant with a second child by her father, meets a determined and radical teacher, we follow her on a journey of education and enlightenment as she learns not only how to write about her life, but how to make it truly her own for the first time.
Push won the Book-of-the-Month Club Stephen Crane award for First Fiction, the Black Caucus of the American Library Association's First Novelist Award, and, in Great Britain, the Mind Book of the Year Award. Push was nominated for an NAACP Image Award in the category of Outstanding Literary Work of Fiction. The book became a New York Times bestseller and was named by the Village Voice and Time Out New York as one of the Top 10 books of 1996.
Push was later turned into the Lee Daniels’ film, Precious, with a cast that features the debutant Gabourey Sidibe as the title character, and Mariah Carey, Mo'Nique, Paula Patton and Lenny Kravitz.
Sapphire also authored American Dreams, a collection of poetry that was cited by Publisher's Weekly as "one of the strongest debut collections of the 1990s." Her poems and other works have been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review and Spin. About her most recent book of poetry Poet's and Writer's Magazine wrote, "With her soul on the line in each verse, her latest collection, Black Wings & Blind Angels, retains Sapphire's incendiary power to win hearts and singe minds."
What: Precious screening, movie will be shown in its entirety ( trailer preview: www.weareallprecious.com ) at 6 pm, Conversation with Sapphire at 8 pm and Book Signing. Admission is on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Media RSVP: Samuella Becker, Pace Public Information, sbecker2@pace.edu; 212-346-1637 or 917-734-5172.
Pace Office of Multicultural Affairs/Event Sponsor: Denise Belen Santiago, 212-346-1546 or dsantiago@pace.edu ; Melanie Robles, 212-346-1261 or mrobles@pace.edu
About Pace University: For 103 years Pace University has produced thinking professionals by providing high quality education for the professions on a firm base of liberal learning amid the advantages of the New York metropolitan area. A private university, Pace has campuses in New York City and Westchester County, New York, enrolling nearly 13,000 students in bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral programs in its Lubin School of Business, Dyson College of Arts and Sciences, Lienhard School of Nursing, School of Education, School of Law, and Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems. Visit Pace on the web at www.pace.edu| Facebook | Twitter ( @PaceUNews ) | Flickr | YouTube
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