I made MB pose with Sapphire at the book signing after the talk.
With some friends, I went to a talk last night by the American author Sapphire. She wrote the book Push, the best-selling novel upon which the recent award-winning movie Precious was based. The event was at Kulturhuset and it was part of their international writer’s stage.
Sapphire first did a reading from the book and then had a dialogue with Johanna Koljonen about the book, her background, American politics, the movie and more.
Reading the book was not easy. The main character of Precious is an illiterate 16-year-old who is pregnant for the second time by her father. Her character is disturbingly real and believable – Sapphire said that she has had many people offer to help Precious over the years since she has written the book. But Precious is not based on one real person, but is rather a composite character based on many different students Sapphire had while teaching in Harlem.
All in all, the discussion was inspiring and thought provoking and just the right thing to do on a snowy winter evening in Stockholm.
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I am so so happy to hear that the character in Precious is not a real person (though even a composite is scary.) I have only seen the trailer for the movie, not read the book, and it was extremely disturbing. To the point that I don’t think I *could* see it or read it.
But how great to get such well-regarded authors here! I hope it was well-attended, despite the snow!
Hi, Thanks for the comment. I think that the event was sold out, or if not, close to it. Check out the Kulturhuset site for other events. They do some great stuff there.
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