The Center for Literary Arts is pleased to present celebrated bestselling author, Lauren Groff in a reading from her latest novel, The Vaster Wilds. This event takes place on Thursday, March 6, 2025 at Hammer Theatre at 6:30 PM. 

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The Vaster Wilds is a taut and electrifying novel about one spirited girl alone in the wilderness, trying to survive. In the novel, a servant girl escapes from a colonial settlement, carrying nothing with her but her wits, a few possessions, and the spark of god that burns hot within her. What she finds in this terra incognita is beyond the limits of her imagination and will bend her belief in everything that her own civilization has taught her.

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At once a thrilling adventure story and a penetrating fable about trying to find a new way of living in a world succumbing to the churn of colonialism. The Vaster Wilds is a work of raw and prophetic power that tells the story of America in miniature, through one girl at a hinge point in history, to ask how—and if—we can adapt quickly enough to save ourselves.

 

​Lauren Groff is the award-winning and bestselling author of the celebrated short story collections, Delicate Edible Birds and Florida, a finalist for the National Book Award, as well as four novels- The Monsters of Templeton, shortlisted for the Orange Prize for New Writers, Arcadia, winner of the Medici Book Club Prize, Fates and Furies, a finalist for the National Book Award and Amazon's pick for Best Book of the Year, and Matrix. Groff is a captivating and thoughtful speaker who loves connecting with audiences over discussion of her bestselling works.

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This event is made possible thanks to the support of the Joyce Milligan Family Foundation, the Martha Heasley Cox Lecture and the College of Humanities, and the Arts Artistic Excellence Programming Grants.

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