Winthrop University English Professor Dr. Gregg Hecimovich will discuss The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts: The True Story of The Bondwoman's Narrative, his groundbreaking study of the first Black female novelist and her life before and after enslavement in North Carolina.

Crafts’ novel, The Bondwoman’s Narrative – written between 1853 and 1861 – was not published until 2002 after being discovered at an auction by Harvard’s Henry Louis Gates Jr. However, the author’s identity remained unknown until Hecimovich found documentation in ECU’s Special Collections archives. He then spent a year-in-residence as a Fellow at the National Humanities Center, working on the book.

The Department of English’s annual Tag Lecture is endowed through a generous gift from Dr. and Mrs. Ella Tag. Hecimovich’s presentation is also being supported by ECU’s Whichard Distinguished Professorship in the Humanities, Women and Gender Office, Academic Library Services, North Carolina Literary Review, Gender Studies Program, and Department of History.

The event is free and open to the public.