Speaking to the Williston community on February 13th, Pultizer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder talked about the writing of his New York Times Bestseller, Strength in What Remains.

Mr. Kidder’s book is the story of a young man named Deo who escaped his native East African country of Burundi when it was embroiled in a civil war in the early 1990s. He eventually found his way to the United States, where he attended Columbia University.

Mr. Kidder believes Deo’s story has many different themes. “When you talk about a book you’ve written, you’re expected, quite legitimately, to say what it’s about, but when it comes to this particular book of mine, I’m not entirely confident about my answer. I do know that it’s not about Africa, which is conceived by so many of us Americans as one vast dysfunctional country.” He added, “We imagine that murder and mayhem define those [African nations]. I think in the back of my mind I hoped that Deo’s story would humanize those views.”

Speaking in the Phillips Stevens Chapel, Mr. Kidder focused much of his speech on Deo’s nonprofit health care organization, Village Health Works. After graduating from Columbia, Deo established a clinic in Burundi that has changed the dynamic of health care in that region.

Mr. Kidder said, “Deo returned continually amid the postwar wreckage with the help of his legions of friends and family. He created an organization called Village Health Works which is both a clinic and a public health system, free for those who can’t pay, in a rural village.”

Mr. Kidder also displayed a slideshow of photos, some of which were taken by Deo, of the village and people in Burundi before and after Deo set up his clinic.

Mr. Kidder was the fifth author in the annual Sara Wattles Perry ’77 Memorial Book Talk series, which has also hosted internationally acclaimed authors such as Greg Mortenson and John Bul Dau. Mr. Kidder, who has published over ten non-fiction books was awarded the 1982 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction for Soul of a New Machine.

No stranger to the Pioneer Valley, Mr. Kidder has two daughters who graduated from Williston in 1992 and 1997. One of his books, Hometown, is about the everyday lives of people living in nearby Northampton, Massachusetts.

Mr. Kidder told the Williston community about what motivates him to write his books. “I probably shouldn’t admit this, but what I aspire to, aspire to, is art. Art has the power to transform the experience of suffering and injustice into something human. This is a tale of survival, despair, determination, evil, and kindness. It’s the story of a person, not all that different from most of us.”

Williston’s Head of School, Mr. Robert W. Hill III, chose Strength in What Remains to be the first book in his Head of School’s Winter Reading Challenge series. In an email sent to Williston students over winter break, Mr. Hill wrote, “Don’t miss this opportunity to be an engaged reader and eager audience.”

 Correction February 16th, 2015

The spelling of Burundi has now been corrected.

A version of this article appears in the March 2015 print edition with the headline “Pulitzer Winning Author’s Visit.”