One Maryland One Book

What if we all read the same book at the same time to discuss it? In that spirit, Maryland Humanities created One Maryland One Book (OMOB) ;to bring together diverse people in communities across the state through the shared experience of reading the same book, including here at Salisbury University.

This year’s book, What Storm, What Thunder by Myriam J.A. Chancy, features a cast of loosely-connected characters in and around Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in the aftermath of the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that struck the country in 2010. Chancy shows us her characters – an NGO architect, a water-bottling executive, a drug trafficker, an immigrant cab driver, and others – in scenes that take place before and after the earthquake, and sometimes even during the event itself. We learn their pasts and plans, all as the deadly earthquake strikes. Written in eloquent, heart-wrenching prose, Chancy captures the reader and shows them a vision of Haiti that is at once heartbreaking and yet hopeful.

The SU Fulton School of Liberal Arts is distributing a limited amount of free print copies of the book. Request a free print book here.

One Maryland One Book Panel Discussion

Tuesday, October 22 • 7 p.m.
Guerrieri Academic Commons, Assembly Hall

Join a panel discussing several themes of the book, including Haitian culture and history, earthquakes and environmental disasters, and political and gendered violence. Panelists include Reverend Roosevelt Toussaint, president of the Haitian Development Center of Delmarva and Minister at the Word of Life Center, and SU faculty Arnaud Perret of Modern Languages and Intercultural Studies; April Logan of English, Africana Studies, and Gender and Sexuality Studies; and Stephanie Bernhard of English and Environmental Literature.

For more information, contact Jenna Habermeyer jlhabermeyer@salisbury.edu.