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Longwood’s English and Modern Languages Department will host an on-campus reading and interview with award-winning novelist and essayist Monique Truong, the 2021 John Dos Passos Prize winner, on Thursday, April 7.

The event, which is open to the public, will take place at 7:30 p.m. in Jarman Hall, followed by a book signing with the writer and complimentary refreshments in the first-floor lobby of Chichester Hall.

Truong, who explores themes of food, displacement and hunger in her work, is the 40th recipient of the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature. The Dos Passos Prize, first launched in 1980, is a premier literary award given annually by Longwood University to a talented but underappreciated American writer.

Truong, who is known for her best-selling novels The Book of Salt (2003), Bitter in the Mouth (2010) and The Sweetest Fruits (2019), will read selections from her work. Truong’s work is often based on real-life people and experiences, seen through the eyes of those who have been marginalized in history.

For more information about the event contact Brandon Haffner at haffnerbs@longwood.edu.