At a campus event, Bennett will discuss her New York Times-bestselling novel The Vanishing Half with Occidental Writer-in-Residence and Visiting Assistant Professor of English Chekwube O. Danladi.

Brit Bennett's The Vanishing Half has been selected as this year’s Community Book. Published in 2020, this stunning novel centers on twin sisters, inseparable as children, who ultimately choose to live in two very different worlds, one black and one white. Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family—from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s—Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.

Brit Bennett, who was born and raised in Southern California, earned her MFA in fiction at the University of Michigan. Her debut novel The Mothers was a New York Times bestseller, and her second novel The Vanishing Half was an instant #1 New York Times bestseller. Her essays have been featured in The New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review, and Jezebel.

The Community Book Program promotes the mission of the College by empowering students, faculty, staff, alumni, parents, and other members of the broader Oxy community to experience the joy of reading and learning together.

Note: First year students do not require a ticket for entry.

Occidental’s Community Book Program with Brit Bennett