TRINITY | A Busboys and Poets Books Presentation
Date and Time
Aug 1, 2023 6:00 pm
Location
450K
450 K St NW, Washington, District of Columbia, 20001
Aug 1, 2023 6:00 pm
450K
“If we are ancestrally haunted, we may also be ancestrally healed. This is the lesson of Zelda Lockhart’s Trinity, an epic, vivid and heart-wrenching novel. Reminiscent of the work of Gayl Jones and Alice Walker, Lockhart breathes life into the landscape and gives us Black history through characters you will never forget. Beautiful.” — Imani Perry, author of the New York Times bestseller South to America
The Hurston-Wright Award Finalist makes her long-awaited return with this electrifying saga—as moving and indelible as The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, The Turner House, and The Love Songs of W. E. B. DuBois—that explores three generations of a family trying to overcome trials and trauma and free themselves from the darkness of the past.
Lottie Rebecca Lee is spoken into the world in Fayetteville, North Carolina by a Black nurse who declares, “Lord Jesus, if that ain’t the blackest little baby born this side of heaven.” Later, Lottie will prove that she is the ancestors’ promise to unearth the Mississippi and Ghanaian atrocities that have tormented Benjamin Lee, her grandfather who was born during the Great Depression in Mississippi’s red clay tobacco fields, and Benjamin Junior, his son and Lottie Rebecca’s father, born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, where the post Korean War GI Bill promises prosperity. These two generations of men are haunted by the Mother-Spirit who did not survive enslavement’s post-traumatic stress violence. Trinity is the riveting story of the daughter-spirit born to stitch love back into the scattered wombs of her Black mothers and call love back into the fishing blues songs of her Black male kin. Lottie Rebecca Lee is the Divine spirited daughter born to set everything back up right again, in this daringly original novel.
Zelda Lockhart is joining us on the Busboys stage to share her novel and her experience writing it with Dr. Kadjiah Ali-Coleman. Copies of the book will be available for purchase during and after the event, and Lockhart will be signing following the program.
This event is free and open to all. Our program begins at 6:00 pm, and will be followed by an audience Q&A. Copies of TRINITY will be available for purchase before and after the event. Please note that this event is IN PERSON and will NOT be livestreamed.
We ask that guests RSVP in order to receive direct updates about the event from Busboys and Poets Books
Zelda Lockhart is the author of Fifth Born, Cold Running Creek, and Fifth Born II: The Hundredth Turtle. Her fiction, poetry, and essays appear in several anthologies including Chautauqua and Obsidian II. She holds a PhD in Expressive Art Therapies, an MA in Literature, and a certificate from the New York Film Academy. She lives in North Carolina.
Khadjiah Z. Ali-Coleman, Ed.D. is a cultural curator, community organizer, nationally recognized speaker, and writer. She is author of the children’s book Mariah’s Maracas and co-editor of the book Homeschooling Black Children in the US: Theory, Practice and Popular Culture. Her work is featured in the anthology The Fire Inside: Collected Stories and Poems from Zora’s Den (ZD, 2020) and the book Afro-Futurism in Black Panther: Gender, Identity and the Remaking of Blackness (Rowan & Littlefield, 2021). She is founder of the multidisciplinary arts company Liberated Muse Arts Group and co-founder of the education research group Black Family Homeschool Educators and Scholars (BFHES), and is the executive director of The Hurston-Wright Foundation.
