University. Her essays have been published in the american scholar, best american essays and best African American essays. She is the Julian Lindsey graham professor of english at the university of vermont. Her latest book stories from my grandmothers time my mothers time and mine is an extraordinary exquisitely written memoir that looks at race and a fearless and true way. In 12 connected a deeply personal essays that support up close the complexities and boxes of the haunting memories and ambushing realities of growing up black in the south with a family name inherited from a white man of getting a phd from yale, marrying a white man from the north, adopting two babies room ethiopia, teaching at a White College and living in americas new england today, Henry Louis Gates calls it a major contribution and Washington Post says its magnificent. Carolyn is an american poet, editor, translator and activist. Her books of poetry or blue hour the angel of history the country betweenou us and gathering of s. Tribes. In 2013, she received the academy of american poets fellowship given for distinguished poetic f achievemt and in 2017 she became one of the first to receive the prize. Shes a professor at georgetowne university. Margaret atwood calls thehe new book what you have heard is true a memoir of witness and resistance astonishing, powerful, so important at this time. Its a devastating lyrical memoir of a young womans brave choice to engage with horror in a border to help others. A dani shapiro is the bestselling author of the memoir the hourglass still writing, devotion in slow motion and five novels. In the inheritance of a memoir of genealogy, fraternity, she confronts a staggering family secret uncovered by a genealogy test. Her father was not her biological father. She woke up one morning and her entire history, the life sheng s livedd crumpled beneath her. Inheritance is a book about the extraordinary time in which we live, the time in which science and technology has outpaced not only medical ethics o but also e capacities of the human heart to contend with the consequences of what we discover. In the New York Times book review they found inheritance profound, the true drama of inheritance isnt the discovery of her fathers identity, but the meaning she makes of it. Shapiros account is beautifully written and deeply moving. It brought me to tearsea more tn once, she said. So, please join me in welcoming emily bernard, caroline and dani shapiro. [applause] oh, everybody. Im going to read from a few of the essays in my book. First is the title essay black isir the body. Black history. My brown waters became black when they were 6yearsold. They were watching Television One day in february, black history month. A commercial came on. It was more like a 32nd history lesson. A commemoration of a pilot, poet orpi politician. First black as a writer i know calls them, them being the racial pioneers, the inaugural negroes come before most africanamericans to break through the racial barriers in their chosen fields and by breakthrough. We are black, she said to isabella. No, we are brown, she responded. But they called it black. Julia explained. Despite my efforts to shield them, my daughters had somehow gotten wise to the absurd and illogical nature of american racial identity. Blackness, julia figured out, had nothing to do with actual skin color. Blackness, she had come to understand was an external identity, external to her anyway. Race is something other people identified, something they said not necessarily saw. Blackness, she had intended it was a social category, not a coloria but the condition. And like it or not, it was time she was informing her sister to get with the program. And my granddaughters were becoming black. My heart sank. It wasnt blackness per se that caused my heart to think. I enjoyed being black, but it took me a long time to get here to this place of racial pleasure. My earliest experiences of blackness were defined by an unpleasant and uncomfortable hypervigilance. Being black meant you had to be constantly aware that you could never really be at his. Early on, i got wise to the fact that being black and white placement oa whiteplacement of a safe place, not for you. In my family, race wasnt an obstruction or theory or outdated consequence of history, buten the act of living foundatn of our reality. To determine the contours of the choice we made, every mundane public act be performed with a project with a name. When we moved into our house was cold integration. When my older brother and i entered the Public School system, it was cold desegregation. The split between black and blackandwhite wasnt metaphorical. Railroad tracks divided blackandwhite nashville. As on the white side of town, south nashville, we played a role in the grand project of enormous proportions. We lived in south nashville but inas the north nashville we coud be black in a way that wasnt possible in any other part of the city. In north nashville no one wife was watching. We could relax. We were free. North nashville is where my father practiced medicine and where we attend did events at this university. My parents on the modern and one of the countrys oldest. North nashville is where we attended church at a small chapel that was established for the faculty and staff for which both of my parents received their graduate degree. Among the parishioners in the chapel where men and women even though we had no biological relationship we shared something bigger and more profound. History. We celebrate or believe in god and a common pride in how we all need ineeded over and broke thr. We were a community built in spite and because of racism because if it hadnt been for the white supremacy, schools may never have existed. But my daughters were not born under the shadow of this history. It was by the ideology and divinity but not by blood. When they were 12 months ol oldt ththeassumed dual citizenship in america. Once when we were out of town visiting family, i told it black historyy month story and i could see the story unsettled them. I tried to explain my reasons for having wanted to protect my daughters from the language of race but my explanation seemed only to make them more impatient. Dont yout want them to know yor history, his cousin asked. I knew what she meant. She meant slavery, segregation and the civil rights movement, frederick douglass, Sojourner Truth and rosa parks, martin, malcolm and others. February stories, which has american stories belong to her, this White American woman, more than they do to my daughters. I am an african who lives in america come isabella explained one day. She was recounting a conversation she had with aou thirdgrade classmate. The african childrens choir had come to burlington into the class had taken a field trip to see them perform a. Later that day come isabellas classmate a in an attempt to identify the difference she perceived between isabella and the children on stage had referred to isabella as an africanamerican. Isabella corrected her. While it may think that im an american, i am african. When i came to this country, she continued, astonishment made it difficult for me to continue paying attention that my daughter had such a fine sense of her place in the world might have been known. Her implicit assessment of my role as essentially a porter in the stage of her life journey felt appropriate. My daughters have i flipped through picture books that told of the underground churches carved out of rocks. I showed them websites that pictures entry old drawings in the modern photographs of ethiopian kings and queens. Yours is the only african country to fight off colonizers i remind them often. Every mother thinks her daughters lookk like angels, but my daughtersoo do resemble those that commonly Ethiopian Orthodox Christians iconography. This slavery all over the world even in ethiopia. I am proud that my daughters were born in a world where angels and aristocrats look just like them. My husband and i adopted our children and i want to read a little piece from the essay i wrote about the experience of going to ethiopia. This is in the middle of the journey to pick them up but i think it will be clear. We drive slowly as the road bends and disappears as if it had surrendered to the landscape around us. Helen had told us the road would end and we would have to walk for an hour to meet the girls and their family. Our american agent dismissed the information as another one of her fantastic stories. They pulled the car to a stop among the cactus with the stemsc as wide as paddles and decorated with the bristles like stubble on the manss face. Only 3 yards between us but the voices sound far away. Underneath my feet, the earth that is light and packed as brown sugar within arms reach of the small island of green bordered by a layer of rocks and in the Center Stands a tree with a thin trunk and flowering after, excuse me, flowering crown withlo a small skinny kid with an afro. In the distance more trees, some stand in a line. This guy is sick with all of the blue left in the world. I nearly tripped on pieces of shale. My boots catch in the valley of crevices between them. My son discovers that the skin beneath my hair, had interest of my clothing. I feel his piercing impact in my joints and lungs. If we had been in the states, if we were anywhere else, i would have been preoccupied with howh soon i could seek out some shade under which to hide, but here even as i stumble and trudge my way forward, i begin to understand beneath the piercings on and breathtaking sky is exactly wheret i belong. Everything lies in front of me. Nothing is behind. There is no shelter, nowhere to hide. It may be relentless but its glorious, too evaporating any doubts about the road ahead. I standt up straight. The heat isnt something to shun neither side, but something onlt to c carry. As we approach perfect cylinders of long grass my heart beat rapidly and i covered it with my hand. I smoothed my shirt and adjustt my hat. I hope i look like with the whae family wants further plans. As we were greeted by the people to whom t the girls belong to imagine a woman being presented to a grim at the inauguration of anur arranged marriage. Be prepared to be treated like royalty, she had written an unusually helpful email. Indeed the family slaughtered a sheep in our honor. A large pattern sits on the clay table with a loaf of bread that was placed on the side. Everyone gathers to eat but after a few bites i sit back on a bench molded from the same clay as the table and walls of the circular room. I try to arrange my features to an expression that communicates my appreciation for the food, my desire to enjoy it and my inability to do so. I am not successful it is clear. I can tell that youre trying to translate the disappointment that ive caused. Its terrible to know that i am failing to demonstrate the gratitude i feel for everyone in this room. Emotion is caught in my throat, my palms tingle. Rigid with anticipation, eager for the wonderful, terrible moment in which the girls will be placed in our arms. Besides the john drinks from a tin cup. I cannot say no i when it is offered to me. I feel their eyes as they bring the cup to my mouth. Their grandmother bring out the baby that we will know as isabella. Wrapped in the same light blue outfit she wears in the picture since months ago. Her grandfather a woman with a lightly wrinkled face stands in a space that separates the family home. The sky shines a movie star light on the two of them. Julia emerges and is afraid because she has never seen white skin and she gently touches johns arm. Lishe continues to cry as we std outside of the compounds that we are presented they could serve as props in a bugshe bunny cartoon. John gathers us together for a photograph and we begin the trek back to the land rover. The return hike feels more arduous, but some half, the air dry. Im trying not to show my exhaustion. The grandmother has her strapped to her back. Her steps are light. I walk next to one of the cousins. A girl of 11 or 12. Her eyes were larges and kind. The braids in her hair shine. We take turns looking at each other and then walking away catches us. Ther one theres so much i want to ask and tell her but the membrane of language fine and opaque at once travels with us like a glass partition. Even though it feels silly the next time i see her looking i need her and for the second time today put my hand over my heart and press m down hard. She looks away and is still smiling. You are part of our family now, an older cousin tells us thats it for goodbyes. John and i are hustled into the car whose rumbling engine inspired more for julia. The babies were shuffled or found. I told julia who screams into stairs with tears cascading from her eyes. Isabella rests quietly in johns lap in his arms and chest. Suddenly she sits up and opens up herer mouth slightly. Julia follows suit. Before the second round i take my hat and turn it upside down underneath her chin. Three hours later we have become used to the smell and feeling our daughters vomit on our clothing. We are sticky with heat and sweat and bodily fluids by the time we arrive at the airport. John leaves the girls with me while he rushes to the bathroom to clean up my hat and rinse off his shirt. With abb tucked into each arm, i sink into a plastic chair. My dizziness and blurry vision must be a result of the heat i think. An older woman sits down next to arms open. Er i hand her julia and she pulls the blanket from her belongings and hands it to me. She and john take my arms when its time to board. I still feel righetti but have a firm grip on isabella who emerges from the cloth on my shoulder slowly as a plant sprouting from the earth in a time lapse video. She stretches her neck like a periscope and puts her head slowly with a stern look on her face, like a general assessing a battlefield or the atlantic i think and when she smiles i believe we are sharing our first private joke. Julia has decided it is my particular job to tend to her son sean and i trad john and i e they are seated. She and i fall asleep quicklye after takeoff. A few minutes later, the wave of pain propelled me out of my seat and towards the bathroom. Along the way i shove a miserably and indignant at julia into the arms of a pretty flight attendant. I am on mim on my hands and kne throes of seizing abdominal pain when the attendant knocks onbd e door. Asn soon as i empty the launch, she snatches the door open. I looked up and im perpendicular. Madam, your baby and she presents me with julia looks down on mwho looksdown on me wio be alarmed on her 12 monthap old face. The thing about unpasteurized milk is that it doesnt agree with everyone. Ih spend the next few days on ad around the floor of our Hotel Bathroom. My stomach is in a war with bacteria. Gradually unable to climb onto the bed that night while on my back breathing deeply with my mouth open. Late at night john takes the girls to lobby when they become restless. Julia doe does this while john n combes isabella by pushing her r 2 inches back and forth until the short rhythmic motion coaxes her to sleep. Thank you. [applause] it is a pleasure to read with you. Im going to read from what you have heard is true. Most of it takes place in el salvador before the war and the two years leading up to the war. The cousin of the poet whom i translated the previous summer. Im going to read some scenes from the book. It is near the end now. We are walking in the rippling heat of a sorghum field. Cicadas to the empty sky. A man uncorks a water garden and another leans against a spade. Theres a woman, too, wearing an apron skirt overr her trousers. Hard light and the dry rattle of sorghum seed. One ofay the men takes him aside and told him something. A secret, like everything else. We get into the cheap and without explanation drive to another place not far from this field. They would have walked measuring distance not income on others but hoursrs or days. What are we looking for, i asked, and as always, he doesnt answer, swearing under his breath in the haze of smoke that hangs in the air where the corn had been growing. We stopped near a cluster made of mud. One of themm has collapsed and smoke rises from it. Wait here, he tells me, but i dont. I have stopped waiting for him months before this. But he cant seem to break the habit of telling me to wait. Ouoke is rolling along the fields just above the blackened stubble. We walk and then he stops, i stop and when he continues, i continue. He poems the air to say slow down or be quiet. I slow down in a quiet. When we reach, no one is there. None one is home. A large plastic bowl used for making the slurry that becomes tortilla dough is overturned on the ground. Theres a childs tshirt in the slurry. Behind one, it appears that several tens have been held by their feet and clapped against a stone. They are lying on the ground, one of them still opening and closing its peak. A hundred or so meters more and we hear the whine of flies, the hissing and belching of turkey vultures, the flapping of wings like applause in the maize stalks as the birds try to lift themselves. A flatbed truck follows at a distance behind us. They are calling out to us or to the driver of the truck, but i dont understand what they say. I dont know what i had expected to see, but its not the swollen torso of a man with one arm attached to him, a a blackpool f tar. I didnt expect his head with the body itself some s distance away without eyes or lips. The stench in the air is familiar. A routing, sweet, thickening snow. Human death. I bend down when i see the head of a year than announcing dont touch it, let the others do it. At first, i thought they were going to find the rest of the man and placed his remains in the truck. But instead, they gather the arms and hands, legs with feet attached and bring them to the torso where it lies on the ground. They said t set the head, neck t once had abandoned the three men take off their straw hat and stand in a circle around them tn they have reassembled. They stand and one crosses himself likely. The parts are not quite touching. This soil between them especially the head. Birds nearby hoping we will go away and leave them to this meal. The error homes. We thought. Why doesnt anyone do something, i think i asked. On this day i will learn the human head weighs about two and a half kilos. I went into a prison ostensibly to visit someone but i pretended to have known in the past, but the purpose of the visit was to look around in the prison and be shown something that i was then to talk about on the outside. So i will just begin in the middle of this walk inside the prison. We turned a corner where a group of Prison Guards had gathered in a circle playing a game with dice, thoroughly occupied in the game, tossing dice and laughing or groaning, no one looked at us. We have made almost a full circle of this courtyard on all four wings. Miguel looked around cautiously. He