A READING BY MECCA JAMILAH SULLIVAN
Co-sponsored by the Center for Africana Studies, the Creative Writing Program, the Program in Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies, and the Department of English

Introduced by Piyali Bhattacharya

Tuesday, November 29, 6:00 PM
Kelly Writers House | 3805 Locust Walk 

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Join us Tuesday, November 29, at 6:00 PM for a reading by Mecca Jamilah Sullivan (GR'12), author of Big Girl. In her debut novel, Sullivan follows Malaya Clondon, a young girl coming of age in 90s Harlem, New York. Big Girl is “filled with everyday people who, in Mecca Jamilah Sullivan’s gifted hands, show us the love and struggle of what it means to be inside bodies that don’t always fit with the outside world” (Jacqueline Woodson).

Masks are welcome. Please stay home if you feel ill. Books available for purchase in cash, check or PayPal. 

MECCA JAMILAH SULLIVAN
Mecca Jamilah Sullivan (GR'12) is the author of the short story collection Blue Talk and Love (2015), winner of the Judith Markowitz Award for Fiction from Lambda Literary; The Poetics of Difference: Queer Feminist Forms in the African Diaspora (University of Illinois Press, 2021); and her highly anticipated debut novel Big Girl (W.W. Norton & Co., 2022), which was longlisted for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize. Sullivan's fiction explores the intellectual, emotional, and bodily lives of young Black women through voice, music, and hip-hop inflected magical realist techniques. She is Associate Professor of English at Georgetown University and lives in Washington, DC. 

PRAISE FOR BIG GIRL
“Achingly beautiful... Big Girl triumphs as a love letter to the Black girls who are forced to enter womanhood too early — and to a version of Harlem that no longer exists." - New York Times Book Review

“Sullivan charms in her stunning debut novel about a Black girl’s coming-of-age... This is a treasure.” - Starred Review, Publisher’s Weekly

“An affecting and memorable debut.” - Starred Review, Booklist

“A lyrical and important coming of age novel.” - Kirkus Reviews