Poet and Writer Sapphire,
Author of Push, to Visit Feb. 8

Author and poet Sapphire, whose award-winning novel Push was the basis for the Golden Globe-nominated feature film, Precious, will visit the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum on Monday, Feb 8 for a lecture and book signing. (Books will be available following her address.) The public portion of the program begins at 6:45 p.m., with free seating on a first-come basis. Her discussion at CMC is part of series of events across The Claremont Colleges commemorating the birthdate of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
In conjunction, a screening of Precious has been scheduled at 9 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 5 in Pickford Auditorium, as part of the College's Friday night film series. The screening is free and open to all.
Sapphire is the author of American Dreams, a collection of poetry, which was cited by Publisher's Weekly as, "One of the strongest debut collections of the nineties." Her novel, 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 named by The Village Voice as one of the top 25 books of 1996 and by TIMEOUT New York as one of the top 10 books of 1996. It also was nominated for an NAACP Image Award in the category of Outstanding Literary Work of Fiction. About her last book of poetry, Poet's & 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."
Sapphire's work has been translated into 13 languages and has been adapted for stage in the United States and Europe. She has performed her work at the legendary Nuyorican Poet's Caf?, Franklin Furnace, the Bowery Poetry Club, Literaturwerkstadt in Berlin, and Apples & Snakes in London. Her poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in The Black Scholar, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, The Teacher's Voice, The New Yorker, Spin, and Bomb. In February 2007, Arizona State University presented PUSHing Boundaries, PUSHing Art: A
Symposium on the Works of Sapphire. Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire, the film adaptation of Sapphire's novel, Push, recently won the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Awards in the U.S. dramatic competition at Sundance (2009). It is the only film ever to win both the Sundance and Toronto Film Festivals Audience awards, and has been described as a vibrant, honest, and resoundingly hopeful film about the human capacity to grow and overcome.
Sapphire has taught literature, fiction and poetry workshops at SUNY Purchase, Trinity College, and the Writer's Voice in New York City. She has taught graduate writing workshops in MFA programs at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Brooklyn College, and at the New School University. In 1990 she received an Outstanding Achievement in Teaching Award from Joyce Dinkins, then First Lady of New York City, for her work with literacy students in Harlem and the Bronx.