Authors Danzy Senna and Touré Tell Tales of Race
At Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus in February

Brooklyn, N.Y. – Acclaimed authors Danzy Senna and Touré will read from their works at Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus in February, as part of the English Department’s "Voices of the Rainbow" reading series.

The series brings authors of varying racial, ethnic and cultural backgrounds to the Campus in order to offer a range of artistic expressions to students and the community.

Senna, a novelist of mixed racial heritage, will speak on Thursday, February 12 at noon in Health Sciences Room 119. African-American author and "Rolling Stone" magazine contributor Touré will discuss his work on Wednesday, February 25 at noon in Library Learning Center Room 124. Both events are free and open to the public.

The daughter of a black father and white mother, both activists in the Civil Rights movement, Senna is the author of "Caucasia," her semi-autobiographical debut novel about two sisters of mixed heritage. Critics lauded the book, describing it as "lucid and magnificent," "absorbing" and "brilliant." It has won the Book-of-the-Month Club Stephen Crane First Fiction Award and the Alex Award by the American Library Association.

The author known by the single name Touré has written a collection of short stories, "The Portable Promised Land," in which he mixes everyday black experience with magic realism, lighthearted humor with heavyhearted issues. A critic ranks it "among the most sincere, most imaginative, most thoroughly entertaining and honest celebrations of the life, history and culture of Black America that I have ever read."

The "Voices of the Rainbow" series is funded by the office of Provost Gale Stevens Haynes. For more information, call (718) 488-1109.

Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus opened in 1926, welcoming a diverse population at a time when other major universities enforced quota systems against racial and ethnic minorities. More than 30,000 students currently are enrolled at the University’s three residential and three regional compuses, including more than 11,000 at the Brooklyn Campus.