'The Born Frees' Author Coming to The Duke City & The City Different

Book launch at Busboys & Poets in Washington, August 2015

Kimberly Burge has made appearances at bookstores, churches, seminaries and universities in Washington, Cleveland, Fairfax, Va., Cincinnati, and the San Francisco Bay area to promote her book The Born Frees. Boston is scheduled in the next couple of weeks. And on April 30, her tour brings her to Albuquerque and Santa Fe!

We invite you to attend the readings at Noon at Op.Cit Books, at DeVargas Mall, 157 Paseo de Peralta (map) in Santa Fe or at 3:00 p.m. Bookworks, 4022 Rio Grande Blvd NW (map) in Albuquerque to hear Kimberly talk about her experiences working with a group of remarkable young women through a writing group she helped organize in the township of Gugulethu, South Africa. See listing on the Bookworks calendar of events

These young women belonged to the first generation born into a post-apartheid world. Though they were “born free,” the young women of the townships around Cape Town still face daunting challenges. 

Girls such as irrepressible Annasuena, whose late mother was one of South Africa s most celebrated singers; bubbly Sharon, already career-bound; and shy Ntombi, determined to finish high school and pursue further studies, find reassurance and courage in writing. Together they also find temporary escape from the travails of their lives, anxieties beyond boyfriends and futures: for some of them, worries that include HIV medication regimens, conflicts with indifferent guardians, struggles with depression. Driven by a desire to claim their own voices and define themselves, their writing in the group Amazw Entombi, Voices of the Girls, provides a lodestar for what freedom might mean.

The readings at Op.Cit and Bookworks are the two events where the public can meet Kimberly. She also has events scheduled at Amy Biehl Charter High School and the University of New Mexico (sponsored by the Fulbright Association-New Mexico) on April 29. There is also a possibility that she will appear on the KUNM radio show Women's Focus (via a phone interview) on Saturday, April 23.  Stay tuned for details.

(Posters courtesy of Steve McKiernan)