Book Talk: Alan Govenar in Conversation with Hardymon Director Olivier Meslay
Author and filmmaker Alan Govenar and Olivier Meslay, Hardymon Director of the Clark, join in a conversation about his novel, Boccaccio in the Berkshires. In a profoundly satirical homage to fourteenth-century writer Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron, Govenar’s novel provides a fresh take on human interactions in the time of COVID. Where Boccaccio’s short stories told tales of ten people sheltering in a villa outside Florence to escape the Black Death (a bubonic plague pandemic in the 1300s), Govenar chronicles the contemporary story of ten asymptomatic pandemic survivors who shelter together in an Italianate mansion in the Berkshires. They form unexpected bonds as they tell each other stories to cope with the bizarre conditions of the modern world.
Alan Govenar is an award-winning writer, poet, playwright, photographer, and filmmaker. He is the founder and president of Documentary Arts, a non-profit organization that advances essential perspectives on historical issues and diverse cultures. Govenar is a Guggenheim Fellow and the author of more than thirty books, including Paradise in the Smallest Thing, Stoney Knows How: Life as a Tattoo Artist, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Untold Glory, Texas Blues, Stompin’ at the Savoy, Everyday Music, Texas in Paris, Osceola: Memories of a Sharecropper’s Daughter, and A Pillow on the Ocean of Time.
Free. Advance registration for the Zoom transmission is required. Copies of Boccaccio in the Berkshires are available through the Clark’s Museum Store.
