“Weight of the World”
Today between 4:30 – 5:00 pm PDT I’ll be on OPB, speaking with April Baer about how we deal with world news (war, poverty, etc..). You can listen online here.
Today between 4:30 – 5:00 pm PDT I’ll be on OPB, speaking with April Baer about how we deal with world news (war, poverty, etc..). You can listen online here.
I really enjoyed reading with Gary Shteyngart at the Bumbershoot Festival this weekend. I read from Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits while Gary did a great rendition in Misha’s voice of the scene from Absurdistan where the hero arrives in New York and has to get circumcised, on orders from his beloved papa. The reading was moderated by Mark White, who did a great job with the questions, and tried to find common ground between Gary’s work and mine.
It’s good that I had no idea that George Saunders and Mary Gaitskill were in the audience or I would have been unable to go through with it without stumbling. I’m always at a loss for words with writers I admire, and I guess this time was no different: When I shook hands with Mary Gaitskill after the reading, I called her “Veronica” (yes, after her latest novel) and, very kindly, she did not correct me.
I’m heading to Seattle to read at Bumbershoot, Seattle’s Music and Arts Festival, this Sunday. There will be tons of great acts to see there including AFI, Kanye West, N’gugi Wa Thiongo, Mary Gaitskil, Alison Bechdel, Blondie, George Saunders, and many, many more. I’ll be reading with Gary Shteyngart and Mark White will lead a Q & A. Here are the details:
Sunday, September 3
6:30 PM
Reading with Gary Shteyngart and Q & A with Mark White
Bumbershoot Music and Arts Festival
Seattle Center – Alki Room
Seattle, Washington
If you’re around, come by and say hello!
Yes, I am the “Arab chick” referred to in this Stranger article about Gary Shteyngart.
I am still catching up with email, with reading, with the news, with the world, and so desperately trying not to post another rant. We’ll see how it goes.
The July/August issue of the Women’s Review of Books includes a piece on my debut book, Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, and Assia Djebbar’s novel Children of the New World, which finally appeared here in the U.S. in a translation by Marjolijn de Jager, forty years after its original publication. Unfortunately, this (very perceptive) review is not available online. Still, I couldn’t resist including at least this bit from Nadia Boudidah Falfoul’s piece:
In contrast to Djebar’s patriotic men and women who fight a common enemy and work toward a common dream, Lalami’s isolated characters share only their desperation. Although the French colonizer left Morocco decades ago, these people are estranged and displaced in their own country. Djebar’s fellagas, who sacrifice their lives for their country, have been replaced by Lalami’s harragas, who sacrifice their lives to flee it.
More here.