Lunch for Libraries with Abraham Verghese

April 29 @ 12–1:15 p.m.

Please join us on Tuesday, April 29, for our 14th annual Lunch for Libraries spring fundraiser at Monona Terrace Convention Center!

This year’s featured speaker will be Abraham Verghese, M.D., award-winning author of The Covenant of Water. Described by Oprah Winfrey as “epic,” this instant New York Times bestseller and Oprah’s Book Club pick is an unforgettable and stunning story of love, faith, and medicine. Verghese will be in conversation with Rebecca Makkai, author of The New York Times bestseller, I Have Some Questions For You, as well as four other works of fiction. Her previous novel, The Great Believers, was a finalist for both the 2019 Pulitzer Prize and the 2018 National Book Award. She teaches graduate fiction writing at Middlebury College, Northwestern University, and the Bennington Writing Seminars, and she’s the Artistic Director of StoryStudio Chicago.

About the Book and Author

The Covenant of Water has sold more than 2 million copies worldwide. Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, the novel follows three generations of a Christian family in Kerala, South India, that suffers a peculiar affliction: In every generation, at least one person dies by drowning. As the novel opens, a 12-year-old girl is sent by boat to her wedding, where she meets her husband for the first time. She joins a prosperous household and becomes known as Big Ammachi, the matriarch of an extraordinary family that will endure hardship, celebrate triumph, and witness unthinkable changes over the coming decades.

Verghese is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the author of My Own Country, The Tennis Partner, and Cutting for Stone, which spent 107 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and sold more than two million copies worldwide. Verghese won the 2023 Writer in the World Prize, was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Obama, has received six honorary degrees, and is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the Linda R. Meier and Joan F. Lane Provostial Professor in the Department of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

Event Details

Lunch for Libraries check-in will begin at 11:30 a.m., with the program to follow from noon–1:15 p.m.

Individual tickets are $150; click below to purchase. Tables for eight to 10 guests are also available for purchase; view our Table Captain Information Packet for details.

Interested in becoming an event sponsor? View our Sponsorship Opportunities for more information and the signup form.

Proceeds support free, year-round Wisconsin Book Festival author programming.

Have more questions? Email events@mplfoundation.org or call our office at 608.266.6318.

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