COLUMBUS, Ga —  A woman who grew up in Columbus and earned international fame for her writing returns to the Valley Tuesday.

Karen Branan, author of her personal memoir The Family Tree: A Lynching in Georgia, A Legacy of Secrets, and My Search for the Truth, will read from her work and lead a discussion of its issues in Columbus.

A press release announces she will be welcomed by the Page Turners Book Club at the Mildred L. Terry Public Library at 640 Veterans Parkway. The event begins at 5:30 p.m., it is free, and open to the public.

Copies of Branan’s book will be available for purchase.

The Family Tree: A Lynching in Georgia, A Legacy of Secrets, and My Search for the Truth tells the history of a crime in Harris County in which an African-Americans woman and three men were falsely accused of murdering the Sheriff’s nephew and were lynched.

Branan is the great-granddaughter of that sheriff. She says she spent twenty years researching the incident, uncovering brutal truths about race and family in the South and, in the process, being forced to re-examine herself as someone who thought she rose above the racism of her own upbringing.

Branan is a Columbus High School and the University of Georgia School Of Journalism alumni. She has written for newspapers, magazines, stage and television for the past fifty years.

Her work has appeared in Life, Mother Jones, Ms., Ladies’ Home Journal, Good Housekeeping and Parents magazines. It has also been featured on the CBS, ABC, CNN, PBS and BBC television networks.