Germantown’s NEA Big Read to feature ‘The Namesake’
Germantown has received an NEA Big Read grant for the third time since 2015.
The NEA Big Read is a nationwide initiative focused on book-related events and projects in the community. The National Endowment for the Arts and Arts Midwest awarded the $12,500 grant with the purpose of bringing people together to read, discuss and explain their perspectives on a book and life issues.
For this year’s NEA Big Read, the featured book is “The Namesake”by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri. “The Namesake” focuses on two generations of a Bengali-American family living in Massachusetts and their experience as immigrants to struggle to assimilate while not losing their identity.
Daniel Page, Germantown Community Library director, said “The Namesake” was selected because it possesses an appeal that resonates among people of all ages and backgrounds.
“If you pick a book that has a very specific appeal or maybe a more limited scope, then getting everybody in the community to read that book is a little more challenging,” Page said. “Then when we try to think about the type of programming we might do, because once you find a book that you like, we know that we are going to have to do lots of different events for all ages that are related to the book somehow.”
Those events will be scattered throughout Germantown starting with a special NEA Big Read kickoff scheduled for Jan. 16 at Germantown Community Library. There will be plenty of food trucks and entertainment on-site, and free copies of “The Namesake” will be distributed. The festivities around Germantown conclude Feb. 26.
“Every week there’s something going on in Germantown,” Page said. “There’s several organizations that partner with us to host events, like the Germantown Performing Arts Center, the Germantown Community Theatre, the schools, the library. Some are for adults, some are for kids, some are for anybody.”
Events will include arts and crafts and theater productions involving “The Namesake” and its themes. Other events — including an appearance by Mitali Perkins, author of “You Bring the Distant Near” — are in the works and will posted on the library’s online calendar.
The National Endowment for the Arts has funded more than 1,400 NEA Big Read programs since 2006, doling out $19 million in the process. Germantown is the only community in Tennessee to receive a grant to host a Big Read program between September and June 2019.
Alexa Robinson, City of Germantown employee and grants manager, is tasked with writing Germantown’s NEA Big Read grant application. Robinson said Germantown’s recent success in obtaining grants is due to the priority the community places on the Big Read.
“From the beginning, Germantown has intentionally set out to make the NEA Big Read a communitywide event bringing us all together as we read and discuss good literature,” Robinson said. “The program is very much in keeping with Germantown’s values of lifelong learning, excellence in education, innovation, creativity and continuous improvement.”