The Stratford Library will host author Peter D. Cimini for a special “Meet-the-Author” program on Sunday, March 14 from 2-3 pm.   Cimini, who will discuss his historical fiction set on the Dark Continent, The Man Who Transformed Africa: The Rebirth of a Continent, is free and open to the public. The Man Who Transformed Africa opens with Vatican intrigue between liberal and conservative cardinals, which leads to the unlikely selection of an Indonesian pope. Seizing the opportunity, the new pope uses his ex-cathedra (papal infallibility) to declare poverty to be an immoral human condition. The pope decides to lead by example, taking the provocative step of selling Vatican treasures to fund a long-term plan to build a strong middle-class society in Africa.

The novel follows the pope, an ex-president of the United States, and an African nationalist during the first two years of an estimated twelve-year project to build a strong African middle-class society. Peter D. Cimini received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education from New York University in 1954. He taught school in the New York City public schools for six years. In l960 he was offered a teaching position in the Clarkstown, New York public schools. In his third year at Clarkstown he was named teacher of the year by the local Kiwanis organization.

In l970 he was recruited by the Newington, Connecticut Board of Education to become a curriculum coordinator. During his twenty-five years in Newington, Connecticut, he found that writing curriculum was his most gratifying task. During his tenure in the Newington Public schools, Peter was published twelve times in professional journals and twice in newspaper articles for the Hartford Courant. He retired in l996 from the Newington Public schools and began to write his first novel, The Secret Sin of Opi. It was published in 2010. His second novel, The Man Who Transformed Africa: The Rebirth of a Continent, was published in 2020.

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