DEERFIELD, IL — Richard Powers, winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, has some local connections. Powers, who is featured in a new podcast from the Deerfield Public Library, grew up in Evanston.
“Playground” is the newest novel from Powers, and is the main topic of the podcast, but the library reveals that the author also discusses his friendship with Jeff Berger-White, an English teacher at Deerfield High School who is retiring at the end of the school year. Powers credits Berger-White for having “raised generations of Deerfield High students to not just love literature, but to take it seriously as a tool with which to navigate life.”
“We explore this very theme in ‘Playground,’ which centers around the competitive intellectual high school friendship of two boys in Chicago,” the library said of the podcast. “This is a profound conversation about the huge sea changes we face, from the climate crisis, to artificial intelligence, to how we attend to one another, and the role art can play.”
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According to the library, since 2017, the podcast has featured conversations with authors, artists, and other notable people from Chicagoland and around the world. Recent guests have included Chicago short story writer Amina Gautier and former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky. Dylan Zavagno, the adult services coordinator at the library, serves as host. He was awarded the 2021 Illinois Library Association Readers’ Advisory Service Award for his work on the podcast. We are
In celebration of this special podcast conversation with Powers, the library is also hosting a book discussion on Playground on Thursday, Dec. 5, at 7 p.m. The discussion will be held in a hybrid format, both in person at the Library and on Zoom. Find out more here.
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