African and African American Studies program fall lecturer Kiese Laymon, a Black southern writer from Jackson, Mississippi and winner of the 2019 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction will give a reading of his work at 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 7 at the Donald W. Reynolds Center Auditorium.

Laymon does battle with the personal and the political: race and family, body and shame, poverty and place in his award winning provocative memoir Heavy, genre-defying novel Long Division, and groundbreaking essay collection How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America.

His savage humor and clear-eyed perceptiveness have earned him comparisons to Ta-Nehisi Coates, Alice Walker and Mark Twain.

The reading will be preceded by a reception in the Reynolds Center Atrium at 5:15 p.m. and followed by a book signing at 7 p.m.