Malaprop’s Bookstore Discussion

January 28, 2026 | Events

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Presented by Malaprop’s Bookstore and Cafe

🗓️ Feb 11, 2026 @ 6:00pm – 7:00pm ET

đź“ŤIn-person

🗺️ Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe, 55 Haywood St, Asheville, NC

Join us in-store when local scholar and author Dr. Rima Vesely-Flad presents her newest book, The Fire Inside: The Dharma of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde. 

The event is free, but registration is required to reserve your seat.

More from Dr. Rima Vesely-Flad

James Baldwin argued that racism is not a “Black problem” but a white fear-driven delusion that scapegoats Black people and evades interior work. Drawing on Baldwin’s essays and testimony, we discuss his critique of white moral pretentiousness, evasion, and the projection of shame and fear—especially the fear of death—onto Black bodies. We also see how Baldwin’s analysis relates to Buddhist teaching on dependent origination from the Rice Seedling Sutra.

 

In this dharma talk, we investigate the role of Sati—which is translated as knowing, awareness, presence, or mindfulness—in the writings of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde, in conversation with early Buddhist writings.
In this dharma talk, we understand the weight of suffering through the eyes of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde. We learn how Baldwin gleaned the difference between suffering due to the violence of racism, and suffering that is central to the human experience. We learn about Lorde’s embrace of the idea that pain can teach us something important, but that we need not suffer uselessly.

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