Dr. Greg Sarris' Watermelon Nights Book Event

Tuesday, September 21, 2021 | Student Center Ballrooms B & C
September 21, 2021

In Watermelon Nights, Greg Sarris tells a powerful tale about the love and forgiveness that keep a modern Native American family together in Santa Rosa, California.

Told from the points of view of a twenty-year-old Pomo man named Johnny Severe, his grandmother Elba, and his mother, Iris, this intergenerational saga uncovers the secrets—and traumatic events—that inform each of these characters’ extraordinary powers of perception. First published in 1998, Watermelon Nights remains one of the few works of fiction to illuminate the experiences of urban Native Americans and is the only one to depict the historical conditions that shape a tribe’s rural-to-urban migration.

For more information about this event, visit the Native American Studies website or contact mctaggle@sonoma.edu(link sends e-mail)