Power of Literature

People & Stories brings fiction -- and hope -- to its audiences

Wednesday, March 24, 2010 5:06 PM EDT

By Adam Grybowski

Colm Tóibín, a visiting lecturer in Irish Letters at Princeton University and author of six novels, a short story collection, several works of nonfiction and a play, will read from his work at a benefit for People & Stories/ Gente y Cuentos.

 FOR more than 30 years the grassroots humanities program People & Stories / Gente y Cuentos has confronted the notion that literature is only for the upper crust of society — the white-collar, college educated, affluent elite.

“Our mission is to connect new audiences with the beauty and power of literature,” says Executive Director Pat Andres.

The new audiences she speaks of often lack a high-school education and read at or below a fifth-grade level. Their social and economic circumstances are often difficult and challenging. They may be in prison, halfway houses, drug rehabilitation programs or other community and social service centers. Whatever their disadvantage, age or ethnicity, People & Stories / Gente y Cuentos serves them.

The organization accomplishes its mission by exposing marginalized people to works of short fiction and encouraging them to critically examine it, often through the lens of their own experience.

“We hope that the discovery of literature will bring hope to their lives,” Ms. Andres says. “We see that a new self assurance and confidence will develop when people find that their ideas are taken seriously by others in a group.”

The Costa Novel Award-winning Irish writer Colm Tóibín will read from his work, which besides novels includes short stories and journalism, at a wine-and-dessert reception to benefit People & Stories / Gente y Cuentos April 1 in Princeton.

Mr. Tóibín, a visiting lecturer in Irish Letters at Princeton University, has written six novels, a short story collection, several works of nonfiction and a play. He contributes regularly to the London Review of Books and the New York Review of Books.

Ms. Andres helped choose one of his short stories to add to the regular program’s roster. “His works are at once deeply poetic, layered and resisting of cultural stereotypes,” she says. “At the same time they are very accessible. There’s a real quiet power to his writing.”

How does fiction like Mr. Tóibín’s aid people in real life?

“Literature can provide a mirror,” Ms. Andres says. “People can discover things about themselves through analyzing characters of stories. There’s a power to poetic, symbolic language that touches a place within all of us in ways that ordinary conversation does not and discursive prose does not.”

The structured discussions of People & Stories / Gente y Cuentos are reminiscent of but not quite the same as a college classroom. Coordinators carefully choose stories they think will draw out the questions and responses of participants, many of whom are engaging in critical reflection for the first time.

“In the classroom there’s a sense that there’s a right and wrong answer,” Ms. Andres says, contrasting standard education with her program. “We start from a participant’s interpretation based on their life experience and use that as a point of entry to bring them into really deep contact with the story on the page. People have a chance to come to know that their life experiences have prepared them to understand these stories on a deep level.”

People & Stories / Gente y Cuentos began in a housing project in Cambridge, Mass., where founder Sarah Hirschman organized a group of Puerto Rican women for the first series, which was conducted in Spanish. The program has expanded to include an English version and appear across the country, from San Francisco to Trenton. Locally, programs are held in Princeton, Lawrence, Bordentown, Ewing and New Brunswick.

Program coordinators are all literature scholars — often retired or active teachers and professors. Though some volunteer, most coordinators are paid.

Ms. Andres has been coordinating People & Stories / Gente y Cuentos programs for 23 years, becoming the full-time executive director in 2000. Before the organization invited her to participate in the first English session in Princeton, she says she knew what she wanted to do “but didn’t have a name for it.”

“I was searching for a way to combine my love of literature with what I was calling at the time social work,” she says. People & Stories provided a vehicle for her to achieve those goals.

Last year the short story writer Amy Hempel appeared at the benefit. Other previous guests include Edith Grossman, a translator of Don Quixote, Emily Mann, Paul Muldoon and Robert Fagles. “Our event typically relates very close to our mission,” Ms. Andres says. “We like to invite short story writers and people whose work has been of interest to our participants.”

A wine-and-dessert reception featuring Colm Tóibín, to benefit People & Stories / Gente y Cuentos, will be held at the Nassau Club, 6 Mercer St., Princeton, April 1. Tickets cost $100, $250 includes dinner with the author, $500 includes an autographed book. 609-393-3230; peoplepa@starlinx.com; www.peopleandstories.org