Portland Arts & Lectures 2025–26: Imani Perry

Imani Perry is the National Book Award–winning author of South to America, as well as eight other books of nonfiction. Her latest release, Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People, was dubbed one of the most anticipated books of 2025 by Time, USA Today, LitHub, and many more. She is the Henry A. Morss Jr. and Elisabeth W. Morss Professor of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University, and is a 2023 MacArthur Fellow. Perry lives between Philadelphia and Cambridge with her two sons.