Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on January 18, 2012.

John Sayles, born in upstate New York in 1950, has a storied career as an independent filmmaker, screenwriter, and writer of fiction and nonfiction. He has written and directed many films including Return of the Secaucus Seven, Lone Star, Passion Fish, The Secret of Roan Inish, and Matewan.  Writing scripts for others—he has a long list of credits as screenwriter—has generated the funds to support the production of most of his own films.

Sayles’ first novel, Pride of the Bimbos, was published in 1975 and was followed in 1977 by the novel Union Dues and a story collection, The Anarchist’s Collection, in 1979. Los Gusanos, his sweeping tale of Cuban expatriates in Miami, followed in 1991, and his most recent novel, A Moment in the Sun, was released this year by McSweeney’s and clocks in at 900+ pages. The novel is “a brutal picaresque complete with melancholy whores, militaristic robber barons, desperate cut-throat prospectors, and puppet soldiers…” according to William Vollmann, that looks at the United States discovering its own size and wealth and taking giant first steps at imperialism in the late 19th century.

Besides numerous awards and nominations for his film work and screenwriting including a Lifetime Achievement Award from The Writer’s Guild of America, literary recognition for Sayles has come in the form of an O. Henry Award for his first published story and nominations for both a National Book Award and the National Book Critics Award for the novel Union Dues. In 1985 he received a MacArthur Fellowship for his work in both film and writing.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

You may learn more about this event on the Lannan website

Right click here to download.
Length: 1:19:11; Size: 39 MB

Possibly Related Posts:

• John Sayles with Francisco Goldman, Conversation, 18 January 2012 – Video
• John Sayles, Reading, 18 January 2012 – Video
• Jimmy Santiago Baca with Carolyn Forché, Conversation, 15 September 2010 – Video
• Jimmy Santiago Baca with Carolyn Forché, 15 September 2010 – Audio
• David Shirk with Peter Smith, 24 January 2012 – Audio

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on January 18, 2012.

John Sayles, born in upstate New York in 1950, has a storied career as an independent filmmaker, screenwriter, and writer of fiction and nonfiction. He has written and directed many films including Return of the Secaucus Seven, Lone Star, Passion Fish, The Secret of Roan Inish, and Matewan.  Writing scripts for others—he has a long list of credits as screenwriter—has generated the funds to support the production of most of his own films.

Sayles’ first novel, Pride of the Bimbos, was published in 1975 and was followed in 1977 by the novel Union Dues and a story collection, The Anarchist’s Collection, in 1979. Los Gusanos, his sweeping tale of Cuban expatriates in Miami, followed in 1991, and his most recent novel, A Moment in the Sun, was released this year by McSweeney’s and clocks in at 900+ pages. The novel is “a brutal picaresque complete with melancholy whores, militaristic robber barons, desperate cut-throat prospectors, and puppet soldiers…” according to William Vollmann, that looks at the United States discovering its own size and wealth and taking giant first steps at imperialism in the late 19th century.

Besides numerous awards and nominations for his film work and screenwriting including a Lifetime Achievement Award from The Writer’s Guild of America, literary recognition for Sayles has come in the form of an O. Henry Award for his first published story and nominations for both a National Book Award and the National Book Critics Award for the novel Union Dues. In 1985 he received a MacArthur Fellowship for his work in both film and writing.

In this episode he is joined in conversation with Francisco Goldman. The companion Reading episode may be found here.

You may learn more about this event on the Lannan website; you may also listen to audio recordings of this event there.

Right click here to download.
Length: 27:27; Size: 331 MB

Possibly Related Posts:

• John Sayles with Francisco Goldman, 18 January 2012 – Audio
• John Sayles, Reading, 18 January 2012 – Video
• Jimmy Santiago Baca with Carolyn Forché, Conversation, 15 September 2010 – Video
• Jimmy Santiago Baca with Carolyn Forché, 15 September 2010 – Audio
• David Shirk with Peter Smith, 24 January 2012 – Audio

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on January 18, 2012.

John Sayles, born in upstate New York in 1950, has a storied career as an independent filmmaker, screenwriter, and writer of fiction and nonfiction. He has written and directed many films including Return of the Secaucus Seven, Lone Star, Passion Fish, The Secret of Roan Inish, and Matewan.  Writing scripts for others—he has a long list of credits as screenwriter—has generated the funds to support the production of most of his own films.

Sayles’ first novel, Pride of the Bimbos, was published in 1975 and was followed in 1977 by the novel Union Dues and a story collection, The Anarchist’s Collection, in 1979. Los Gusanos, his sweeping tale of Cuban expatriates in Miami, followed in 1991, and his most recent novel, A Moment in the Sun, was released this year by McSweeney’s and clocks in at 900+ pages. The novel is “a brutal picaresque complete with melancholy whores, militaristic robber barons, desperate cut-throat prospectors, and puppet soldiers…” according to William Vollmann, that looks at the United States discovering its own size and wealth and taking giant first steps at imperialism in the late 19th century.

Besides numerous awards and nominations for his film work and screenwriting including a Lifetime Achievement Award from The Writer’s Guild of America, literary recognition for Sayles has come in the form of an O. Henry Award for his first published story and nominations for both a National Book Award and the National Book Critics Award for the novel Union Dues. In 1985 he received a MacArthur Fellowship for his work in both film and writing.

In this episode he is introduced by Francisco Goldman and then reads from his work. The companion Conversation episode may be found here.

You may learn more about this event on the Lannan website; you may also listen to audio recordings of this event there.

Right click here to download.
Length: 51:30; Size: 623 MB

Possibly Related Posts:

• John Sayles with Francisco Goldman, 18 January 2012 – Audio
• John Sayles with Francisco Goldman, Conversation, 18 January 2012 – Video
• Jimmy Santiago Baca with Carolyn Forché, Conversation, 15 September 2010 – Video
• Jimmy Santiago Baca with Carolyn Forché, 15 September 2010 – Audio
• David Shirk with Peter Smith, 24 January 2012 – Audio

Recorded at the James A. Little Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on December 6, 2011

Norman Finkelstein received his doctorate in 1988 from the Department of Politics at Princeton University. For many years he taught political theory and has written and spoken publicly on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Finkelstein is the author of six books that have been translated into more than 40 foreign editions: This Time We Went Too Far: Truth and Consequences of the Gaza Invasion; Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History; The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering; Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict; A Nation on Trial: The Goldhagen Thesis and Historical Truth (with Ruth Bettina Birn); and The Rise and Fall of Palestine: A Personal Account of the Intifada Years. Finkelstein has also published several pamphlets, most recently, Goldstone Recants. He is currently working on a new book entitled Knowing Too Much: Why the American Jewish Love Affair with Israel is Coming to an End.

Finkelstein currently writes and lectures. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

You may learn more about this event on the Lannan website

Right click here to download.
Length: 2:08:14; Size: 61.6 MB

Possibly Related Posts:

• David Shirk with Peter Smith, 24 January 2012 – Audio
• John Sayles with Francisco Goldman, 18 January 2012 – Audio
• John Sayles with Francisco Goldman, Conversation, 18 January 2012 – Video
• John Sayles, Reading, 18 January 2012 – Video
• Tariq Ali with Avi Lewis, 26 October 2011 – Audio

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on November 16, 2011.

Dinaw Mengestu was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1978. In 1980 he immigrated to the United States with his mother and sister, joining his father, who had fled the communist revolution in Ethiopia two years before.  A graduate of Georgetown University and of Columbia University’s MFA program in fiction, Mengestu has written for many publications. He recently reported stories for Harper’s, The Wall Street Journal, and Jane magazine, where he profiled a young woman who was kidnapped and forced to become a soldier in the brutal war in Uganda, and for Rolling Stone on the tragedy in Darfur.

His first novel, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears (titled Children of the Revolution in Britain), won The Guardian First Book Award in the U.K. and the Prix Femina Étranger in France, and earned him a place as one of the U.S. National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” for 2007. The novel has been translated into numerous other languages. He is also the recipient of a 2006 fellowship in fiction from the New York Foundation for the Arts and a Lannan Fiction Fellowship in 2007. Mengestu’s second novel, How to Read the Air, was released in October 2010 and earlier that year Mengestu was selected as one of The New Yorker’s “20 under 40” writers of 2010.

He lives with his wife and two young children in Paris.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

You may learn more about this event on the Lannan website

Right click here to download.
Length: 1:17:42; Size: 37.3 MB

Possibly Related Posts:

• John Sayles with Francisco Goldman, 18 January 2012 – Audio
• John Sayles with Francisco Goldman, Conversation, 18 January 2012 – Video
• John Sayles, Reading, 18 January 2012 – Video
• David Shirk with Peter Smith, 24 January 2012 – Audio
• Norman Finkelstein with Chris Hedges, 6 December 2011 – Audio

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on September 13, 2011.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie burst onto the literary scene with her remarkable debut novel, Purple Hibiscus, hailed by critics as "one of the best novels to come out of Africa in years" (Baltimore Sun), with "prose as lush as the Nigerian landscape that it powerfully evokes" (The Boston Globe).

Her award-winning second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, illuminates a seminal moment in African history: Biafra's struggle to establish an independent republic in southeastern Nigeria during the late 1960s.

"We do not usually associate wisdom with beginners, but here is a new writer endowed with the gift of ancient storytellers. She is fearless, or she would not have taken on the intimidating horror of Nigeria's civil war. Adichie came almost fully made." Chinua Achebe

"An immense achievement. As well as freshly re-creating this nightmarish chapter in her country's history, she writes about the slow process by which love, if strong enough, may overcome."  The Observer (London)

In her most recent book, That Thing Around Your Neck, Adichie turns her penetrating eye on not only Nigeria but America, in 12 stories that explore the ties that bind men and women, parents and children, Africa and the United States.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was born in Nigeria in 1977 and grew up in the university town of Nsukka, where she briefly studied medicine and pharmacy. She then moved to the United States to attend college, graduating from Eastern Connecticut State and later earning Masters degrees in creative writing from Johns Hopkins and in African Studies from Yale University. Her fiction has appeared in Granta, The New Yorker, and The Iowa Review among other journals.

She divides her time between the United States and Nigeria.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

You may learn more about this event on the Lannan website

Right click here to download.
Length: 1:10:32; Size: 37.5 MB

Possibly Related Posts:

• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie with Binyavanga Wainaina, Conversation, 28 September 2011 – Video
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Reading, 28 September 2011 – Video
• Don DeLillo with Mark Danner, 28 April 2010 – Audio
• Arundhati Roy with Avi Lewis, 24 March 2010 – Audio
• John Sayles with Francisco Goldman, 18 January 2012 – Audio

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on November 16, 2011.

Dinaw Mengestu was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1978. In 1980 he immigrated to the United States with his mother and sister, joining his father, who had fled the communist revolution in Ethiopia two years before. A graduate of Georgetown University and of Columbia University’s MFA program in fiction, Mengestu has written for many publications. He recently reported stories for Harper’s, The Wall Street Journal, and Jane magazine, where he profiled a young woman who was kidnapped and forced to become a soldier in the brutal war in Uganda, and for Rolling Stone on the tragedy in Darfur.

His first novel, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears (titled Children of the Revolution in Britain), won The Guardian First Book Award in the U.K. and the Prix Femina Étranger in France, and earned him a place as one of the U.S. National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” for 2007. The novel has been translated into numerous other languages. He is also the recipient of a 2006 fellowship in fiction from the New York Foundation for the Arts and a Lannan Fiction Fellowship in 2007. Mengestu’s second novel, How to Read the Air, was released in October 2010 and earlier that year Mengestu was selected as one of The New Yorker’s “20 under 40” writers of 2010.

He lives with his wife and two young children in Paris.

In this episode he is joined in conversation with Penn Szittya. The companion Reading episode may be found here.

You may learn more about this event on the Lannan website; you may also listen to audio recordings of this event there.

Right click here to download.
Length: 26:18; Size: 317 MB

Possibly Related Posts:

• Dinaw Mengestu, Reading, 16 November 2011 – Video
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie with Binyavanga Wainaina, Conversation, 28 September 2011 – Video
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Reading, 28 September 2011 – Video
• Lorrie Moore with Kate Moses, Conversation, 19 January 2011 – Video
• Lorrie Moore, Reading, 19 January 2011 – Video

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on November 16, 2011.

Dinaw Mengestu was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1978. In 1980 he immigrated to the United States with his mother and sister, joining his father, who had fled the communist revolution in Ethiopia two years before. A graduate of Georgetown University and of Columbia University’s MFA program in fiction, Mengestu has written for many publications. He recently reported stories for Harper’s, The Wall Street Journal, and Jane magazine, where he profiled a young woman who was kidnapped and forced to become a soldier in the brutal war in Uganda, and for Rolling Stone on the tragedy in Darfur.

His first novel, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears (titled Children of the Revolution in Britain), won The Guardian First Book Award in the U.K. and the Prix Femina Étranger in France, and earned him a place as one of the U.S. National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” for 2007. The novel has been translated into numerous other languages. He is also the recipient of a 2006 fellowship in fiction from the New York Foundation for the Arts and a Lannan Fiction Fellowship in 2007. Mengestu’s second novel, How to Read the Air, was released in October 2010 and earlier that year Mengestu was selected as one of The New Yorker’s “20 under 40” writers of 2010.

He lives with his wife and two young children in Paris.

In this episode he is introduced by Penn Szittya and then reads from his work. The companion Conversation episode may be found here.

You may learn more about this event on the Lannan website; you may also listen to audio recordings of this event there.

Right click here to download.
Length: 51:17; Size: 621 MB

Possibly Related Posts:

• Dinaw Mengestu with Penn Szittya, Conversation, 16 November 2011 – Video
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie with Binyavanga Wainaina, Conversation, 28 September 2011 – Video
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Reading, 28 September 2011 – Video
• Lorrie Moore with Kate Moses, Conversation, 19 January 2011 – Video
• Lorrie Moore, Reading, 19 January 2011 – Video

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on September 28, 2011.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie burst onto the literary scene with her remarkable debut novel, Purple Hibiscus, hailed by critics as "one of the best novels to come out of Africa in years" (Baltimore Sun), with "prose as lush as the Nigerian landscape that it powerfully evokes" (The Boston Globe).

Her award-winning second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, illuminates a seminal moment in African history: Biafra's struggle to establish an independent republic in southeastern Nigeria during the late 1960s.

"We do not usually associate wisdom with beginners, but here is a new writer endowed with the gift of ancient storytellers. She is fearless, or she would not have taken on the intimidating horror of Nigeria's civil war. Adichie came almost fully made." Chinua Achebe

"An immense achievement. As well as freshly re-creating this nightmarish chapter in her country's history, she writes about the slow process by which love, if strong enough, may overcome." The Observer (London)

In her most recent book, That Thing Around Your Neck, Adichie turns her penetrating eye on not only Nigeria but America, in 12 stories that explore the ties that bind men and women, parents and children, Africa and the United States.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was born in Nigeria in 1977 and grew up in the university town of Nsukka, where she briefly studied medicine and pharmacy. She then moved to the United States to attend college, graduating from Eastern Connecticut State and later earning Masters degrees in creative writing from Johns Hopkins and in African Studies from Yale University. Her fiction has appeared in Granta, The New Yorker, and The Iowa Review among other journals.

She divides her time between the United States and Nigeria.

In this episode she is joined in conversation with Binyavanga Wainaina. The companion Reading episode may be found here.

You may learn more about this event on the Lannan website; you may also listen to audio recordings of this event there.

Right click here to download.
Length: 27:22; Size: 330 MB

Possibly Related Posts:

• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Reading, 28 September 2011 – Video
• Dinaw Mengestu with Penn Szittya, Conversation, 16 November 2011 – Video
• Dinaw Mengestu, Reading, 16 November 2011 – Video
• Lorrie Moore with Kate Moses, Conversation, 19 January 2011 – Video
• Lorrie Moore, Reading, 19 January 2011 – Video

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on September 28, 2011.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie burst onto the literary scene with her remarkable debut novel, Purple Hibiscus, hailed by critics as "one of the best novels to come out of Africa in years" (Baltimore Sun), with "prose as lush as the Nigerian landscape that it powerfully evokes" (The Boston Globe).

Her award-winning second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, illuminates a seminal moment in African history: Biafra's struggle to establish an independent republic in southeastern Nigeria during the late 1960s.

"We do not usually associate wisdom with beginners, but here is a new writer endowed with the gift of ancient storytellers. She is fearless, or she would not have taken on the intimidating horror of Nigeria's civil war. Adichie came almost fully made." Chinua Achebe

"An immense achievement. As well as freshly re-creating this nightmarish chapter in her country's history, she writes about the slow process by which love, if strong enough, may overcome." The Observer (London)

In her most recent book, That Thing Around Your Neck, Adichie turns her penetrating eye on not only Nigeria but America, in 12 stories that explore the ties that bind men and women, parents and children, Africa and the United States.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was born in Nigeria in 1977 and grew up in the university town of Nsukka, where she briefly studied medicine and pharmacy. She then moved to the United States to attend college, graduating from Eastern Connecticut State and later earning Masters degrees in creative writing from Johns Hopkins and in African Studies from Yale University. Her fiction has appeared in Granta, The New Yorker, and The Iowa Review among other journals.

She divides her time between the United States and Nigeria.

In this episode she is introduced by Binyavanga Wainaina and then reads from her work. The companion Conversation episode may be found here.

You may learn more about this event on the Lannan website; you may also listen to audio recordings of this event there.

Right click here to download.
Length: 43:09; Size: 522 MB

Possibly Related Posts:

• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie with Binyavanga Wainaina, Conversation, 28 September 2011 – Video
• Dinaw Mengestu with Penn Szittya, Conversation, 16 November 2011 – Video
• Dinaw Mengestu, Reading, 16 November 2011 – Video
• Lorrie Moore with Kate Moses, Conversation, 19 January 2011 – Video
• Lorrie Moore, Reading, 19 January 2011 – Video