Sue Monk Kidd on “The Invention of Wings”

Guest: Sue Monk Kidd

[From the Radio Times archive] Hetty’s mother told her the reason she had big shoulder blades was because of her African ancestors, who could fly in their home land, but was an innate characteristic lost when they were brought to America. Hetty, a ten-year-old slave, was given to Sarah, a future abolitionist for her 11^th birthday, and our guest, SUE MONK KIDD’s, new novel weaves fact and fiction to tell the story of the next 35 years of the girls’ lives. Sarah is based on the real-life Sarah Grimke, who, with her sister and sister’s husband, wrote an anti-slavery book in 1839, when 270,000 people were enslaved. Kidd, who grew up in the deep, segregated South, and came of age during the Civil Rights movement, said while preparing to write this book she knew she was exploring a “vast, complicated topic.” Sue Monk Kidd is known for writing about female empowerment and is the author of The Secret Life of Bees, which was highly popularized by its 2008 feature film adaptation. She joins Marty to discuss her new novel The Invention of Wings. Marty spoke with Kidd earlier in the year.