African Americans transitioning from bondage to freedom, the hedonistic world of 1920s Havana, and multi-millionaire Rudolf Diesel are just some of the wide-ranging topics authors will discuss during the Seventh Annual History Book Festival Saturday, Sept. 30, in Lewes. The event is presented by Delaware Humanities and The Lee Ann Wilkinson Group, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices/PenFed Realty.
Among six Black authors appearing at this year’s festival, Kidada E. Williams is the author of “I Saw Death Coming,” a breakthrough history of the Reconstruction period that transports readers into the daily existence of formerly enslaved people. Williams deploys cutting-edge scholarship on trauma to consider how the effects of nighttime raids and Ku Klux Klan strikes would linger for decades to come. Williams’ essays have appeared in The New York Times, Slate and multiple scholarly journals. Williams’ book is presented in partnership with the Southern Delaware Alliance for Racial Justice.
Fast-forward to the 1920s, when two sheltered Russian Jewish sisters fleeing the chaos of World War I and the terror of the Soviet Revolution set sail for America, but discriminatory immigration laws bar their entry. With few options, the sisters head for Cuba, convinced they will find a way to overcome this setback, but they become trapped in the sultry, luring world of Havana. While author Aaron Hamburger’s novel “Hotel Cuba” is fiction, the story is based on the real-life immigration story of his grandparents. Hamburger’s book is presented in partnership with Seaside Jewish Community.
One of the most famous men in the world, Rudolf Diesel, vanished Sept. 29, 1913, from the steamship Dresden as it crossed the North Sea. Diesel had become a multimillionaire with a powerful new internal combustion engine that didn’t require expensive petroleum-based fuel, but he also became the enemy of two powerful men: Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and John D. Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil and the richest man in the world. Was his disappearance an accident, suicide or murder? Douglas Brunt, bestselling author and top-rated SiriusXM podcast host, provides a new conclusion about the magnate’s fate in his new biography, “The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel.”
These authors are among 20-plus who will speak about their latest works of historical nonfiction and fiction during the first and only book festival in the U.S. devoted solely to history.
Following the full day of author presentations, the closing address Sunday, Oct. 1, will feature James McBride, author of “The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store.” Tickets are still available for the event, which will take place at Cape Henlopen High School. McBride is a New York Times bestselling novelist who has won a National Book Award and received a National Humanities Medal. He will be in conversation with Marie Arana, inaugural literary director of the Library of Congress. Closing address tickets are $28 and include a signed, hardcover copy of the author’s featured book. Tickets can be purchased at bit.ly/TKTS-MCBRIDE. The closing address is presented by Dogfish Head Beer & Benevolence.
Full information on all the featured authors is available at historybookfestival.org. Books can be purchased after each presentation, when authors will be available to sign them, or they may be bought in advance at Browseabout Books in Rehoboth Beach, the official bookseller of the History Book Festival, or at biblion in Lewes.