Renowned novelist Edwidge Danticat will be Fairfield University’s keynote speaker at the 2025 Martin Luther King Jr. Convocation. The lecture will take place on Feb. 12 at 6 p.m. at the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts. The theme for this year’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. observance is “Beloved Community: Forging Justice, Peace, and Freedom.”
Danticat, the Wun Tsun Tam Mellon Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University, is a celebrated author and scholar. She holds a BA in French literature from Barnard College and an MFA in creative writing from Brown University. A guest author at Fairfield's MFA in Creative Writing program's winter 2022 residency, Danticat has written 18 acclaimed books, including Breath, Eyes, Memory (an Oprah Book Club selection), Krik? Krak! (a National Book Award finalist), The Farming of Bones (an American Book Award winner), and The Art of Death (a National Book Critics Circle finalist). Her memoir, Brother, I’m Dying, won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was a National Book Award finalist.
Danticat is also known for her editorial work on anthologies such as Haiti Noir and Best American Essays 2011. She has earned numerous honors, including a MacArthur Fellowship, the Neustadt Prize, the PEN/Malamud Award, and the Vilcek Prize. Her story collection, Everything Inside, won multiple awards, including the Bocas Fiction Prize and The Story Prize. Her upcoming children’s book, Watch Out For Falling Iguanas, will be released in summer 2025.
The convocation is free and open to the public. A week of programming celebrating the life and influence of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will be held from Feb. 10-13. Events include: A Celebration of Activism, Vision Awards Reception, Youth Leadership Academy, and more.
Learn more and register at fairfield.edu/mlk.
