Swimming Between Worlds

“Swimming Between Worlds is a perceptive and powerful story told with generosity and grace. The struggle of its deftly-drawn young characters to navigate the monumental changes—cultural and personal—that the civil rights movement brought to the South is rich and compelling.” —New York Times bestselling author CHARLES FRAZIER “A novel of great humanity, “Swimming Between Worlds” contains neither a superficial nor a superfluous thought. Conceived with compassion and rendered with grace, it scores a triumph for its author and a blessing for her readers.” —Richmond Times Dispatch ". . . powerful, moving . . . Orr offers a beautifully wrought lesson about America’s troubled race relations and what it means to follow one’s conscience." —Greensboro News & Record "Orr has crafted an intelligent book that both challenges and entertains." —The News & Observer Elaine Neil Orr is an American writer who grew up in Nigeria. Both worlds converge in her novels, Swimming Between Worlds and A Different Sun: A Novel of Africa, and her memoir, Gods of Noonday: A White Girl’s African Life. She is published widely in literary journals and anthologies and has been writer-in-residence at numerous universities, lecturing on writing and literature. She is on the faculty of English at N.C. State University where she won the Alumni Outstanding Research Award, 2019, for her fiction. In addition, she serves on the faculty of the Spalding University Brief-Residency MFA in Writing Program in Louisville. Learn more at elaineneilorr.com. This discussion guide is sponsored by the author.