In a streamed event, one of America’s leading writers discusses her new book, Just Us, which urges us to breach the silence that surrounds whiteness.

At home, on social media and in government, the world around us is split by aggression and defensiveness.

Claudia Rankine asks how we can restore a sense of shared humanity and light a path beyond the culture war, in conversation with author, broadcaster and journalist Gary Younge.

At the heart of Just Us is an exploration of real encounters between friends and strangers that expose the realities of whiteness and white supremacy.

Through these intimate exchanges, Rankine questions the false comfort of private life and invites us to discover what it takes to stay in the room together.

Claudia Rankine is the author of five books, including Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric and the bestselling Citizen: An American Lyric.

A chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, she is the winner of many prizes including the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry and a 2016 MacArthur Fellowship.

She is an adjunct professor of English and African-American Studies at Yale University.

Gary Younge is an author and broadcaster, and professor of sociology at the University of Manchester. He has written five books, the most recent of which, Another Day in the Death of America, won the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize from Columbia Journalism School and Nieman Foundation.

Presented in partnership with Penguin Live.

9 Oct 2020 @ 7:30  Approximate run time: 60 mins Run times may vary, find out more