Prior to receiving his Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree at the University of Northern British Columbia’s Convocation on May 25, Lawrence Hill will host a book reading and discussion at the University on May 23.
An Evening With Lawrence Hill features the critically-acclaimed, award-winning author reading excerpts from his novels The Book of Negroes and The Illegal and discussing his current research and the subject of his next novel on Black American soldiers sent North after Pearl Harbor to build the Alaska Highway.
The discussion will be moderated by CBC Daybreak North’s Andrew Kurjata. The event will begin at 6 p.m. with a reception, book sales and signing in the Canfor Winter Garden, followed by the readings and discussion from 7 – 8 p.m. This is a free event, open to the public and all are welcome.
Hill is a creative writing Professor at the University of Guelph and is the author of 10 books, including TheIllegal, The Book of Negroes, Any Known Blood and Black Berry, Sweet Juice: On Being Black and White in Canada.
He has won numerous awards including The Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and is a two-time winner of CBC Radio’s Canada Reads.
Hill co-wrote the adaptation of the six-part TV miniseries The Book of Negroes, which attracted millions of viewers in Canada and the United States and won 11 Canadian Screen Awards in 2016.
He delivered the 2013 Massey Lectures, based on his non-fiction book Blood: The Stuff of Life.
Hill received the 2017 Canada Council for the Arts Molson Prize and he served as chair of the jury for the 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
Hill will receive his honorary degree at the College of Arts, Social and Health Sciences Convocation ceremony on May 25 at 9:30 a.m. Convocation is a closed event with tickets required.
