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Program 26: The Redemptive Imagination/Story, Memory and Identity
Donald L. Miller with Esmeralda Santiago, Arthur Golden, Charles Johnson, and
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Introduction
Miller: In A Biography of America, we've tried to bring to life
some of the defining moments of American history using the medium of
storytelling. At the root of all history are memories, memories that have been
woven into stories. Today, we turn to four storytellers who have drawn on the
past to create works of power and truthfulness. Esmeralda Santiago, author of
When I Was Puerto Rican...
Santiago: How did I end up here? Here I am in this, Katona, New York;
and I started out in Macoum, Puerto Rico. How did that happen?
Miller: The Boston Globe called her one of the most powerful new voices
in American fiction. Arthur Golden, author of the acclaimed national
best-seller, Memoirs of a Geisha...
Golden: Things don't always narrow down to a sort of pencil point of
truth. It's kind of messy...
Miller: Charles Johnson, author of Middle Passage, winner of the
National Book Award for fiction...
Johnson: ...I used to ask my mother, "Well what about your grandmother,
or my father? What about your great-uncle?"
Miller: And Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., author of Slaughterhouse Five, and a
dozen other memorable novels.
Vonnegut: It is the past, not the future, which scares the heck out of
me...
Miller: Today on A Biography of America, memories, storytelling,
and history.
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