Launched in 2005, Great World Texts in Wisconsin connects high school teachers and students across the state with scholars at UW-Madison through the shared project of reading and discussing a classic piece of world literature. The 2025-26 Great World Texts selection was Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor.
Great World Texts in Wisconsin: Exploring Death of the Author at UW-Madison Libraries, an exhibition celebrating 21 years of Great World Texts and focused on Death of the Author, is up now through May 15, 2026 in the lobby of Memorial Library. The Center for the Humanities and our partners are thankful to the hard work and dedication of Kimmy Rooney, Africana and Francophone Studies Librarian, who co-curated this exhibition with Danielle Weindling, Assistant Director, Center for the Humanities.
Death of the Author is a masterpiece of metafiction that is surprisingly funny, deeply poignant, and endlessly discussable. It is at once the tale of a woman on the margins risking everything to be heard and a testament to the power of storytelling to shape the world as we know it. Death of the Author recently won the Outstanding Literary Work — Fiction award at the 57th NAACP Image Awards.