photo by: Mike Yoder

Lawrence Public Library, pictured Aug. 20, 2015.

The Lawrence Public Library, in partnership with Kansas University’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and KU Libraries, has received a $14,000 grant that will allow Lawrence to host the National Endowment for the Arts’ Big Read.

Slated for September 2016 through June 2017, the Big Read project is managed by Arts Midwest and offers grants that “support innovative community reading programs designed around a single book,” according to the Lawrence Public Library’s news release. The library is one of 77 organizations nationwide to receive a grant for the Big Read, which in Lawrence will focus on Julia Alvarez’s “In the Time of the Butterflies.”

“The library is delighted and honored to earn a NEA Big Read grant for this wonderful program,” Kristin Soper, events coordinator at Lawrence Public Library, said in the news release. “The access to fantastic, bi­lingual, resources will allow for in­depth study and discussion surrounding Julia Alvarez’s classic book. The grant will enable us to provide programming that we otherwise would not be able to afford.”

As part of the Big Read, the library will partner with KU’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and KU Libraries to plan and host a programming series designed to provide context about Dominican culture and history, and to engage the Lawrence community in discussions around the themes of “In the Time of the Butterflies.” The 1994 novel is a fictional account of the real-life political martyrs, the Mirabal sisters, who spoke out against Rafael Trujillo’s dictatorship in the mid-20th-century Dominican Republic.

“We are thrilled to partner with the Lawrence Public Library and KU Libraries to bring the Big Read to Lawrence,” said Danika Swanson, Outreach and Project Coordinator for KU’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, in the news release. “We are excited to contribute our center’s resources and the expertise of our faculty and staff connected to the Dominican Republic, the Caribbean, and beyond to help create culturally relevant and bilingual programs that will reach new and diverse audiences.”