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WINNER OF THE 2024 PULITZER PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY

Ilyon Woo presents her compelling book, Master Slave Husband Wife. This beautiful true story of an extraordinary couple’s flight from enslavement to freedom sheds light on issues of race, power, and love in 19th-century America.

This event is our 3rd annual CHARLESTON READS! program: a city-wide reading initiative run in tandem with the Mayor’s Book Club. 

This year’s Festival will see Ilyon Woo appear in conversation about her novel Master Slave Husband Wife—winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Biography—in a historic location with deep significance, The Dock Street Theatre. Woo's book is the true story of Ellen and William Craft who pulled off one of the most dramatic escapes in US history by performing, in broad daylight, as master and slave. In 1848, the couple fled in the early hours of the morning by train from Macon to Savannah, where they boarded a steamship bound for Charleston, South Carolina. In Charleston, they stayed the night at the Planter’s Hotel, which today is the Dock Street Theatre. So, we will listen to the couple’s story in the exact building where they were hiding in plain sight 176 years ago. 

Many Festival events are filmed and recorded for archival and research purposes, and occasionally for further distribution, such as promotional opportunities, on our website, and for network television. The films might sometimes include recognizable shots of members of the audience and/or interviews with patrons before or after the live events. Purchase of this ticket implies your permission to be filmed.