Tag Archives: literary

Aminatta Forna with Laila Lalami, 11 November 2015 – Audio

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on November 11, 2015.

Aminatta Forna with Laila Lalami, 11 November 2015

This event was part of the Lannan Literary series.

Aminatta Forna is the award-winning author of the novels The Hired Man, The Memory of Love and Ancestor Stones, and a memoir The Devil that Danced on the Water. She was born in Scotland, raised in Sierra Leone and Britain, and spent periods of her childhood in Iran, Thailand and Zambia. Her latest novel, Happiness, weaves together the lives of a Ghanian psychiatrist and an American studying urban foxes in London.

Forna first gained serious literary attention for her memoir, The Devil that Danced on the Water, in which she investigates the murder of her father, Mohamed Forna, a rising star in Sierra Leone’s fledgling democracy. Her novel, Ancestor Stones, encompasses a sweeping view of Africa in the 20th Century, told through the story of Abi, newly returned to Africa from England. Forna’s second novel, The Memory of Love, is set in contemporary Sierra Leone at a hospital where the patients are coping with the wounds—both physical and psychological—from the previous century’s Civil War. Of her recent novel, The Hired Man, John Freeman of The Boston Globe wrote, “Not since Remains of the Day has an author so skillfully revealed the way history’s layers are often invisible to all but its participants.”

Forna is currently Lannan Visiting Chair of Poetics at Georgetown University. She is a columnist for The Guardian and was a judge for the 2013 International Man Booker Prize. In 2003, Aminatta established the Rogbonko Project to build a school in a village in Sierra Leone. The charity now runs a number of projects in the spheres of education, sanitation, and maternal health.

You may learn more about this event on the Lannan website; you may also view the video recordings of this event there.

Additional photos of this event are available on Flickr.

Claudia Rankine with Saskia Hamilton, Conversation, 6 May 2015 – Video

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on May 6, 2015.

This event was part of the Lannan Literary series.

Claudia Rankine is the author of five collections of poetry, including, most recently, Citizen: An American Lyric (Graywolf, 2014) which continues Rankine’s unique genre and presents a powerful testament to the individual and collective effects of racism on society. Another collection, Don’t Let Me Be Lonely (Graywolf, 2004), is a multi-genre experimental project, blending poetry, essays, and images, of which she writes, “Forgiveness, I finally decide, is not the death of amnesia, nor is it a form of madness as Derrida claims. For the one who forgives, it is simply a death, a dying down in the heart, the position of the already dead.” In praise, Jorie Graham wrote, “Rankine breaks out of virtual emotion, reawakens honesty, and exhibits such raw political courage and aesthetic bravery it sends tremors through the entire field of American poetry as she finds it.”

Her plays include Provenance of Beauty: A South Bronx Travelogue, which was commissioned by the Foundry Theatre, and Existing Conditions (co-authored with Casey Llewellyn).

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

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

Additional photos of this event are available on Flickr.

Claudia Rankine with Saskia Hamilton, Reading, 6 May 2015 – Video

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on May 6, 2015.

This event was part of the Lannan Literary series.

Claudia Rankine is the author of five collections of poetry, including, most recently, Citizen: An American Lyric (Graywolf, 2014) which continues Rankine’s unique genre and presents a powerful testament to the individual and collective effects of racism on society. Another collection, Don’t Let Me Be Lonely (Graywolf, 2004), is a multi-genre experimental project, blending poetry, essays, and images, of which she writes, “Forgiveness, I finally decide, is not the death of amnesia, nor is it a form of madness as Derrida claims. For the one who forgives, it is simply a death, a dying down in the heart, the position of the already dead.” In praise, Jorie Graham wrote, “Rankine breaks out of virtual emotion, reawakens honesty, and exhibits such raw political courage and aesthetic bravery it sends tremors through the entire field of American poetry as she finds it.”

Her plays include Provenance of Beauty: A South Bronx Travelogue, which was commissioned by the Foundry Theatre, and Existing Conditions (co-authored with Casey Llewellyn).

In this episode she is introduced by Saskia Hamilton 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 the audio recording of this event there.

Additional photos of this event are available on Flickr.

Claudia Rankine with Saskia Hamilton, 6 May 2015 – Audio

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on May 6, 2015.

Claudia Rankine with Saskia Hamilton

This event was part of the Lannan Literary series.

Claudia Rankine is the author of five collections of poetry, including, most recently, Citizen: An American Lyric (Graywolf, 2014) which continues Rankine’s unique genre and presents a powerful testament to the individual and collective effects of racism on society. Another collection, Don’t Let Me Be Lonely (Graywolf, 2004), is a multi-genre experimental project, blending poetry, essays, and images, of which she writes, “Forgiveness, I finally decide, is not the death of amnesia, nor is it a form of madness as Derrida claims. For the one who forgives, it is simply a death, a dying down in the heart, the position of the already dead.” In praise, Jorie Graham wrote, “Rankine breaks out of virtual emotion, reawakens honesty, and exhibits such raw political courage and aesthetic bravery it sends tremors through the entire field of American poetry as she finds it.”

Her plays include Provenance of Beauty: A South Bronx Travelogue, which was commissioned by the Foundry Theatre, and Existing Conditions (co-authored with Casey Llewellyn).

You may learn more about this event on the Lannan website; you may also view the video recordings of this event there.

Additional photos of this event are available on Flickr.

Kevin Barry with Ethan Nosowsky, Conversation, 4 March 2015 – Video

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on March 6, 2015.

This event was part of the Lannan Literary series.

Kevin Barry described his home in his native Ireland by saying, “I myself live in County Sligo in what seem like the perfect conditions for a writer–a room looking out on a swampy lake, all very atmospheric, ethereal mists, yadda yadda, and there’s nothing to f—–g do but write.” Barry’s recent story collection, Dark Lies The Island, includes tales of unreformed criminals, awkward youth in love, and middle aged women on a road trip making plans for a kidnapping. Of his original and fresh writing, The Paris Review writes, “Barry’s language drags you into a strange, darkly lyrical world, enacting his own definition of literature as a mode of transport.”

Barry’s first novel, City of Bohane, appeared in the UK in 2011 and went on to win the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and was described by The New Yorker as, “A grizzled piece of futuristic Irish noir with strong ties to the classic gang epics of yore.”

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

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

Additional photos of this event are available on Flickr.

Kevin Barry with Ethan Nosowsky, Reading, 4 March 2015 – Video

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on March 6, 2015.

This event was part of the Lannan Literary series.

Kevin Barry described his home in his native Ireland by saying, “I myself live in County Sligo in what seem like the perfect conditions for a writer–a room looking out on a swampy lake, all very atmospheric, ethereal mists, yadda yadda, and there’s nothing to f—–g do but write.” Barry’s recent story collection, Dark Lies The Island, includes tales of unreformed criminals, awkward youth in love, and middle aged women on a road trip making plans for a kidnapping. Of his original and fresh writing, The Paris Review writes, “Barry’s language drags you into a strange, darkly lyrical world, enacting his own definition of literature as a mode of transport.”

Barry’s first novel, City of Bohane, appeared in the UK in 2011 and went on to win the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and was described by The New Yorker as, “A grizzled piece of futuristic Irish noir with strong ties to the classic gang epics of yore.”

In this episode he is introduced by Ethan Nosowsky and then read 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 the audio recording of this event there.

Additional photos of this event are available on Flickr.

Kevin Barry with Ethan Nosowsky, 4 March 2015 – Audio

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on March 6, 2015.

Kevin Barry with Ethan Nosowsky

This event was part of the Lannan Literary series.

Kevin Barry is the author of the novels Beatlebone and City of Bohane, and the short story collections Dark Lies the Island and There Are Little Kingdoms. He was awarded the Rooney Prize in 2007 and won the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award in 2012. For City of Bohane he was short-listed for the Costa First Novel Award and the Irish Book Award, and won the Author’s Club Best First Novel Prize, the European Union Prize for Literature, and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. His short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker and elsewhere. He lives in County Sligo in Ireland.

Barry’s first novel, City of Bohane, appeared in the UK in 2011 and went on to win the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and was described by The New Yorker as, “A grizzled piece of futuristic Irish noir with strong ties to the classic gang epics of yore.”

You may learn more about this event on the Lannan website; you may also view the video recordings of this event there.

Additional photos of this event are available on Flickr.

Alice McDermott with Michael Silverblatt, Conversation, 22 October 2014 – Video

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on October 22, 2014.

This event was part of the Lannan Literary series.

Alice McDermott has, in the words of The New York Times, “staked an impressive claim on a subject matter and a turf–Irish American Catholic families congregated, for the most part, in New York City and its suburbs on Long Island.” Her seven works of fiction include At Weddings and Wakes, Charming Billy, and Child of My Heart: A Novel. Her most recent book, Someone, follows the everyday rhythms in the life of Marie, an ordinary Irish-American girl from Brooklyn in the 1930s, of which she said, “Setting the story there–not in the literal, geographical Brooklyn but in the one of memory, of romanticized recollection–is my way of visiting a place that I suspect never really existed.”

McDermott currently teaches at Johns Hopkins University as the Richard A. Macksey Professor of Humanities.

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

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

Additional photos of this event are available on Flickr.

Alice McDermott with Michael Silverblatt, Reading, 22 October 2014 – Video

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on October 22, 2014.

This event was part of the Lannan Literary series.

Alice McDermott has, in the words of The New York Times, “staked an impressive claim on a subject matter and a turf–Irish American Catholic families congregated, for the most part, in New York City and its suburbs on Long Island.” Her seven works of fiction include At Weddings and Wakes, Charming Billy, and Child of My Heart: A Novel. Her most recent book, Someone, follows the everyday rhythms in the life of Marie, an ordinary Irish-American girl from Brooklyn in the 1930s, of which she said, “Setting the story there–not in the literal, geographical Brooklyn but in the one of memory, of romanticized recollection–is my way of visiting a place that I suspect never really existed.”

McDermott currently teaches at Johns Hopkins University as the Richard A. Macksey Professor of Humanities.

In this episode she is introduced by Michael Silverblatt 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 the audio recording of this event there.

Additional photos of this event are available on Flickr.

Alice McDermott with Michael Silverblatt, 22 October 2014 – Audio

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on October 22, 2014.

Alice McDermott with Michael Silverblatt

This event was part of the Lannan Literary series.

Alice McDermott has, in the words of The New York Times, “staked an impressive claim on a subject matter and a turf “Irish American Catholic families congregated, for the most part, in New York City and its suburbs on Long Island.” Her seven works of fiction include At Weddings and Wakes, Charming Billy, and Child of My Heart: A Novel. Her most recent book, Someone, follows the everyday rhythms in the life of Marie, an ordinary Irish-American girl from Brooklyn in the 1930s, of which she said, “Setting the story there “not in the literal, geographical Brooklyn but in the one of memory, of romanticized recollection “is my way of visiting a place that I suspect never really existed.”

McDermott currently teaches at Johns Hopkins University as the Richard A. Macksey Professor of Humanities.

You may learn more about this event on the Lannan website; you may also view the video recordings of this event there.

Additional photos of this event are available on Flickr.