Writers’ Workshop alum Cristina Henriquez will read from her powerful new novel about the construction of the Panama Canal, The Great Divide, which was named a most anticipated book by The Washington Post, Elle, Book Riot, Electric Literature, Goodreads, The Everygirl, Lit Hub, The Millions, and Reader’s Digest.  She will be joined in conversation by author and Writers’ Workshop Director Lan Samantha Chang.

“Against the backdrop of the construction of the Panama Canal, Cristina Henriquez’s commanding and fearless prose conducts us through the very depth of the Panamanian jungle, where young Ada and Omar fight bravely— for themselves, their families and their communities survival— in a rapidly changing world. Violent empire and volatile sickness combine for harrowing effect in this vivid novel that interrogates all that is sacrificed in the name of progress. By turns macabre and also truly joyful, The Great Divide left me with a powerful ache for forgotten histories that will not soon leave me.” — Xochitl Gonzalez

Cristina Henríquez is the author of The Book of Unknown Americans, The World In Half and Come Together, Fall Apart: A Novella and Stories. She has been longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and was a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Real Simple, The Oxford American, The American Scholar, and elsewhere. She earned her undergraduate degree from Northwestern University and is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She lives in Illinois.