LOS ANGELES - TelAve -- Zócalo Public Square presents the 16th annual Zócalo Book Prize event on June 25, 2026, at 7:00 p.m. PDT, in-person in Los Angeles at the ASU California Center Broadway and streaming live on YouTube. Titled ​​"America, Can We Take Down the Walls Between Us?," the free public program features a lecture by Johns Hopkins University anthropologist Anand Pandian, winner of the 2026 Zócalo Book Prize for Something Between Us: The Everyday Walls of American Life, and How to Take Them Down. Pandian will also be interviewed by political strategist Mike Madrid. The evening begins with a poetry reading by Deborah Ager, the 2026 Zócalo Poetry Prize winner for "Letter from Indialantic," and concludes with an interactive reception that asks the audience to bring the event's ideas to life in real time. Signed copies of Something Between Us will be available for purchase from the Pasadena bookstore Octavia's Shelf.

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In 2016, Anand Pandian was alarmed by Donald Trump's harsh attacks on immigrants to the United States and his politics of anger and fear. In the years that followed, Pandian crisscrossed the country—from Fargo, North Dakota to Denton, Texas, from southern California to upstate New York—seeking out fellow Americans with markedly different social and political commitments, trying to understand the forces that have hardened our suspicions of others. The result is Something Between Us: The Everyday Walls of American Life, and How to Take Them Down, a groundbreaking and ultimately hopeful exploration of the ruptures in our social fabric and courageous efforts to rebuild a collective life beyond them.

Pandian joins an esteemed group of Zócalo Book Prize winners that includes Danielle Allen, Jonathan Haidt, Héctor Tobar, and most recently Jean-Martin Bauer. Zócalo has awarded the $10,000 prize yearly since 2011 to the U.S.-published nonfiction book that best enhances our understanding of community and the forces that strengthen or undermine human connectedness and social cohesion.

https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/the-zocalo-book-prize-america-can-we-take-down-the-walls-between-us/