ASHBURN, VA—Edward P. Jones, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Known World, will read from his work at the GW Virginia Campus on Saturday, March 21, at 5 p.m. Jones received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2004 for his novel The Known World. Set in antebellum rural Virginia, the story centers on a black slave owner and is a meditation on racism, humanity, memory, and the power of art. Jones also is the author of two collections of short stories set in Washington, D.C. – Lost in the City, which won the 2004 PEN/Hemingway Award, and Aunt Hagar’s Children.

 The novel parallels two exhibits now on display at the GW Virginia, “Unforgotten: Slave Quarters and Other African-American Sites,” and “Honoring and Commemorating Black Leadership,” an exhibit of 40 original prints from the U.S. Postal Service specialty series. Neo Realist, Sherry Zvares Sanábria, brings to the GW Virginia Campus her luminous and haunting paintings from the “Unforgotten” series. This moving exhibition consists of some of her recent works exploring and recording sites throughout the country that played significant roles in the lives of African Americans during the time of slavery and after.

To compliment the exhibit Unforgotten: Slave Quarters and Other African American Sites, a selection of famous African-American leaders honored by the U.S. Postal Service is on display. Portraits range from W.E.B. DuBois and Mary McLeod Bethune to Langston Hughes, Jessie Owens, and Zora Neale Hurston. These portraits will be for sale when the exhibit concludes the end of March.

Edward P. Jones was born and raised in Washington, D.C. A recipient of the PEN/Hemingway Award, a Lannan Foundation Grant, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a MacArthur Fellowship, Jones was educated at Holy Cross College and earned his MFA at the University of Virginia. He has taught fiction at Princeton University, George Mason University, the University of Maryland and at The George Washington University.

This semester, Jones is GW’s first Wang Visiting Professor in Contemporary English Literature. The visiting professorship was created through a gift to the university by Albert Wang and his family that also supports an annual series of lectures by prominent authors and scholars.

The reading is free and open to the public, although a reservation is requested. Please RSVP by March 19 at 703-726-3650, or e-mail reservations@va.gwu.edu. The GW Virginia Campus is located in University Center, near the intersection of Routes 7 and 28. The reading is in Building 2, 44983 Knoll Square, Ashburn, VA 20147.

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