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Sarah Valentine *07

Sarah-Valentine

Sarah Valentine is a widely published author and translator whose interests include black and mixed-race experience, mystery, folklore, true crime, horror, and ghost stories. Valentine has taught literature and creative writing at Princeton; the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of California, Riverside; and Northwestern University. In 2013 she won a prestigious writer’s residency from the Lannan Foundation and was awarded Prairie Schooner’s award for best emerging writer.

“When I Was White” is her memoir about growing up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as a mixed-race African American who was raised to believe she was white. The memoir chronicles Valentine’s transition from white to black as well as her journey through depression, breaking family taboos and learning the hard truths about race in America. “When I Was White” has been featured on summer “must-read” lists in Essence, PureWow, Bookriot, The Millions, and Bustle, and called “a masterful explication on the formation of self and identity” by National Public Radio.

Events

Alumni Author Book Fair

Saturday, October 5

Drop-in fair highlighting published Black alumni and select faculty authors.

Aasha M. Abdill *15, Fathering from the Margins
Rahman Beckwith ’03, A Gift of Joy– 365 Love Poems for a Year of Spiritual Ecstasy
Ruha Benjamin, Race After Technology
Heather M. Butts ’94African American Medicine in Washington, D.C.: Healing the Capital During the Civil War Era
Chris Chambers ’82, The Obama Inheritance: Fifteen Stories of Conspiracy Noir
Mario Depeine, Sr. ’85, Immanuel’s Bride and the Holy Spirit, Building a Whole New World
Tod G. Hamilton, Immigration and the Remaking of Black America
Ladee Hubbard ’93, The Talented Ribkins
Daryl Inniss ’83, Silicon Photonics: Fueling the Next Information Revolution
Lolita Buckner Inniss ’83, The Princeton Fugitive Slave: The Trials of James Collins Johnson
Franne McNeal ’82, Significant! From Frustrated to FranneTastic: Inspirational Stories for the Entrepreneurial Woman
Alexis Okeowo ’06, A Moonless, Starless Sky: Ordinary Women and Men Fighting Extremism in Africa
Andre Perry ’00, Some of Us Are Very Hungry Now
Imani Perry, Breathe: A Letter to My Sons
Sarah Valentine *07, When I Was White: A Memoir
Wilton L. Virgo ’00, Quantum Mechanics in Everyday Life
Barbara Wallace ’80, Making Mandated Addiction Treatment Work
Brigitte White ’00, All-American, Making the Cut


Featured authors: