Join the Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts as author Rigoberto González reads from his memoir, Abuela in Shadow, Abuela in Light, Thursday, April 4 at 7 PM in the Art + Design building, room 120, at Austin Peay State University.

Standing over two graves, Rigoberto González studies the names “Ramon” and “María” under the family name “González.” “She was María Carrillo, not María González,” he thinks. His grandmother is missing. So begins González’s memoir, a journey to recover a more complete picture of his grandmother, who raised him following his mother’s death. This memoir unveils the hidden lives that even those we love best can hide from us.

Rigoberto González is a distinguished professor of English and director of the MFA program in creative writing at Rutgers University-Newark, and is the author of eighteen books of poetry and prose. Recipient of the PEN/Voelcker Award, the Bill Whitehead Lifetime Achievement Award, and Lannan, Guggenheim, USA Rolón, and NEA fellowships, he was the finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for a previous memoir, What Drowns the Flowers in Your Mouth.