Race Relations, Civil Rights and Where We are Now take Center Stage at UIW

Pulitzer Prize winning Author returns to Discuss Latest Work

San Antonio, September 10, 2019 – Gilbert King, Pulitzer Prize winning author, makes a return visit to the University of the Incarnate Word (UIW) for a lecture on his new book, Beneath a Ruthless Sun. The book has been received to great critical acclaim. The lecture is free and open to the public and, for the first time, the event has been moved to the UIW McCombs Center Rosenberg Sky Room. It will begin at 7 p.m. and will include a lecture, question and answer session, and a book signing.

Mr. King won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction for Devil in the Grove in 2013. He last spoke at UIW in 2014. His lecture is part of the Distinguished Lecture series presented by the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Studies.

Beneath a Ruthless Sun tells a powerful, page-turning story rooted in the fears that rippled through the South as integration began to take hold, sparking a surge of virulent racism that savaged the vulnerable, debased the powerful, and roils our own times still.

NPR describes the book as a “Chilling… scorching, compelling and, unfortunately still entirely relevant new work.”

King is the author of three books. His previous book, Devil in the Grove, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction in 2013. A New York Times bestseller, the book was also named runner-up for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for nonfiction,and was a finalist for both the Chautauqua Prize and the Edgar Award. King has written about race, civil rights, and the death penalty for The New York Times, the Washington Post, and The Atlantic, and he is a contributor to The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. King’s earlier book, The Execution of Willie Francis, was published in 2008.