San Clemente CA— Surfing Heritage and Culture Center (SHACC) is hosting an evening with William Finnegan, whose autobiography Barbarian Days garnered the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Biography. Finnegan will be at SHACC on Saturday, May 21 from 6-9 PM to give a talk and sign copies of his celebrated book.
Admission is free for SHACC members, $5 for non-members. Call 949.388.0313 x0 in advance to pre-order a copy of the book and have it signed by the author.
Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life is William Finnegan’s memoir of an obsession, a complex enchantment. Raised in California and Hawaii, Finnegan started surfing as a child. He has chased waves all over the world, wandering for years through the South Pacific, Australia, Asia, and Africa. A bookish boy, and then an excessively adventurous young man, he went on to become a distinguished writer and war reporter.
Finnegan’s captivating, generous writing and unwavering eye, combined with his journeys across the globe over the past half century, make for one of the most entertaining and unforgettable memoirs in recent memory. Barbarian Days is an old-school adventure story, an intellectual autobiography, a social history, a literary road movie, and an extraordinary exploration of the gradual mastering of an exacting, little understood art.
“Reading this guy on the subject of waves and water is like reading Hemingway on bullfighting; William Burroughs on controlled substances; Updike on adultery. . . a coming-of-age story, seen through the gloss resin coat of a surfboard.” —Sports Illustrated

About SHACC

Founded in 2000, SHACC is a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization dedicated to preserving, presenting and promoting surfing’s heritage for the appreciation and education of current and future generations. SHACC serves as the world’s foremost educational and support resource for surfing publications, manufacturers, and museums. Learn more at www.surfingheritage.org