The Common Read
An Overview
The purpose of Kean’s Common Read program is to bring students together around a given text to discuss relevant and timely topics, to promote interdisciplinary discourse, and to create a shared intellectual experience for students in their first year at Kean. The Common Read is supported by the Division of General Education (DGEIS) and the College of Liberal Arts.
Fall 2024 Common Read
In Fall 2024, first-year students enrolled in Transition to Kean (GE 1000) and other courses will engage with this year's Common Read text, How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue.
About the Author
Imbolo Mbue is the author of the New York Times bestseller Behold The Dreamers, which won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and was an Oprah’s Book Club selection. The novel has been adapted into an opera and a stage play, and optioned for a miniseries. Her second novel, How Beautiful We Were, about a fictional African village’s fight against an against American oil company, was named by the New York Times as “One of the 10 Best Books” of 2021. Her works have been translated into more than twenty languages and published around the world. A native of Limbe, Cameroon, and a graduate of Rutgers and Columbia Universities, Mbue lives in New York.