Iris Jamahl Dunkle | Riding Like the Wind

Renowned biographer and essayist Iris Jamahl Dunkle comes to TKE to discuss and sign her new book: Riding Like the Wind: The Life of Sanora Babb.

This event is free and open to the public but registration is required.

Copies of the book will be available to purchase at the event. You may also pre-order your signed copy of Riding Like the Wind to pick up at the event by either calling the store at 801-484-9100 or ordering online. If you cannot make this event, signed copies of Riding Like the Wind may be ordered from our website. Please specify in the comments if you would like your copy personalized. Places in the signing line are reserved for those who purchase a copy from The King's English.

About the book

In 1939, when John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath was published, it became an instant bestseller and a prevailing narrative in the nation's collective imagination of the era. But it also stopped the publication of another important novel, silencing a gifted writer who was more intimately connected to the true experiences of Dust Bowl migrants. In Riding Like the Wind, renowned biographer Iris Jamahl Dunkle revives the groundbreaking voice of Sanora Babb.

Dunkle follows Babb from her impoverished childhood in eastern Colorado to California. There, she befriended the era's literati, including Ray Bradbury and Ralph Ellison; entered into an illegal marriage; and was blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities Committee. It was Babb's field notes and oral histories of migrant farmworkers that Steinbeck relied on to write his novel. But this is not merely a saga of literary usurping; on her own merits, Babb's impact was profound. Her life and work feature heavily in Ken Burns's award-winning documentary The Dust Bowl and inspired Kristin Hannah in her bestseller The Four Winds. Riding Like the Wind reminds us with fresh awareness that the stories we know—and who tells them—can change the way we remember history.

Host or Publisher The King's English Bookshop