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Charles J. Shields, author of Lorraine Hansberry: The Life Behind A Raisin in the Sun

Written when she was just 28, Lorraine Hansberry’s landmark A RAISIN IN THE SUN is listed by the National Theatre as one of the hundred most significant works of the 20th century. Hansberry was the first Black woman to have a play performed on Broadway, and the first Black and youngest American playwright to win a New York Critics’ Circle Award. Charles J. Shields’ authoritative biography of one of the 20th century’s most admired playwrights examines the parts of Hansberry’s life that have escaped public knowledge: the influence of her upper-class background, her fight for peace and nuclear disarmament, the reason why she embraced Communism during the Cold War, and her dependence on her white husband --- her best friend, critic and promoter.

Week of January 23, 2023

Paperback releases for the week of January 23rd include THE BIG DARK SKY by Dean Koontz, an exhilarating, twist-filled thriller in which a group of strangers bound by terrifying synchronicity becomes humankind’s hope for survival; VIOLETA, a sweeping novel from Isabel Allende, who tells the epic story of Violeta Del Valle, a woman whose life spans 100 years and bears witness to the greatest upheavals of the 20th century; LORRAINE HANSBERRY by Charles J. Shields, a moving account of the life of the woman behind "A Raisin in the Sun," the most widely anthologized, read and performed play of the American stage; and Julie Otsuka's THE SWIMMERS, a searing, intimate story about what happens to a group of obsessed recreational swimmers when a crack appears at the bottom of their local pool.