Virtual Author Conversation: Kawai Strong Washburn
in conversation with author V.V. Ganeshananthan
Wednesday, August 21, 7:00 p.m. | Zoom
Register here | Captioning will be provided.

Reading Period: July 29 – September 22

One Book | One Minnesota is a statewide book club that invites Minnesotans of all ages to read a common title and come together virtually to enjoy, reflect, and discuss. During the reading period, Minnesotans will be invited to read the featured book selection and will have access to author videos, reading guides, and virtual book club discussions. Readers can access the ebook and audiobook for free on Ebooks Minnesota through September 22 at www.thefriends.org/onebook.

Kawai Strong Washburn was born and raised on the Hamakua coast of the Big Island of Hawai’i. His first novel, Sharks in the Time of Saviors, won the 2021 PEN/Hemingway award for debut novel and the 2021 Minnesota Book Award; it was also longlisted for the 2020 Center For Fiction First Novel Prize and was a finalist for the 2021 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award. Former US President Barack Obama chose it as a favorite novel of 2020, and it was selected as a notable or best book of the year by over a dozen publications, including the New York Times and Boston Globe. It has also been translated into eight languages and counting. Washburn lives with his wife and two daughters in Minneapolis.

About Sharks in the Time of Saviors
In 1995 Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, on a rare family vacation, seven-year-old Nainoa Flores falls overboard a cruise ship into the Pacific Ocean. When a shiver of sharks appears in the water, everyone fears for the worst. But instead, Noa is gingerly delivered to his mother in the jaws of a shark, marking his story as the stuff of legends and a sign of divine favor.

But as time passes, this supposed divine favor begins to drive the family apart: Nainoa, working now as a paramedic on the streets of Portland, struggles to fathom the full measure of his expanding abilities; further north in Washington, his older brother Dean hurtles into the world of elite college athletics, obsessed with wealth and fame; while in California, risk-obsessed younger sister Kaui navigates an unforgiving academic workload in an attempt to forge her independence from the family’s legacy.

—

One Book | One Minnesota is presented by The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library, as the Minnesota Center for the Book, in partnership with State Library Services and sponsored by Blaze Credit Union. Program partners also include Council of Regional Public Library System Administrators; Mackin VIA; Minitex; the Minnesota Department of Education; Macmillan Publishers; and Recorded Books. This program is made possible in part through an appropriation from the Minnesota State Legislature to The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library as the Minnesota Center for the Book.