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92Y UNTERBERG POETRY CENTER
2015-16 LITERARY EVENTS
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| July 30, 2015 – New York, NY – Jonathan Franzen’s first New York reading from his new novel, Purity, and exclusive appearances by John Irving, David Mitchell and Kay Ryan (all with new books) are the highlights of the 92Y Poetry Center’s 2015-16 season – but there’s something to love for literary fans of all stripes this year at 92Y.
The new season kicks off with Franzen on Sept. 24, and it includes a reading by Salman Rushdie (from his new book), rare appearances by novelists Louise Erdrich, Howard Jacobson and Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai —and even a visit by master storyteller Garrison Keillor.
Primo Levi enthusiasts get a chance to celebrate the great Italian writer in October (with David Remnick and others); James Brown fans get insight on the legendary performer’s life in March, when James McBride visits with his new book about music, race and travelling in the deep South; and Yehuda Amichai lovers can join Leon Wieseltier, Robert Alter and others at 92Y in December to celebrate the great Israeli poet’s work.
Other highlights include: a discussion on art, trauma and social justice with Citizen author Claudia Rankine and clinicians from the William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis & Psychology; National Poetry Month readings by Ben Lerner, Susan Howe and Anne Carson (in April); and several intimate literary discussions on beloved writers such as Charlotte Brontë, Gore Vidal and Robert Frost, among others.
The full season is below. |
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Reading: Jonathan Franzen
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Thursday, Sept. 24, 8 pm, From $28
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| The much-buzzed-about author of The Corrections and Freedom (among other works) kicks off the 92Y Poetry Center’s 77th season with a reading from his new novel, Purity (Sept. 1, FSG), a dark comedy of youthful idealism, extreme fidelity and murder. This is Franzen’s first New York reading of Purity. |
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Reading: Sandra Cisneros & Azar Nafisi
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Wednesday, October 7, 8 pm, From $28
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| Thirty years after The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros publishes A House of My Own (Oct. 6, Knopf), a patchwork memoir of personal, political and literary pieces that span her career. Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran, discusses her favorite American novels in The Republic of Imagination: America in Three Books (Viking). |
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A Celebration of Primo Levi:
With David Remnick, Ann Goldstein and others
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Thursday, October 15, 8:15 pm, From $22
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| An evening of reading and discussion to celebrate the great Italian writer upon publication of The Complete Works of Primo Levi (Sept., W.W. Norton & Company). |
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Discussion: Adrian Tomine
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Thursday, October 22, 8:15 pm, From $22
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| Cartoonist and New Yorker illustrator Adrian Tomine discusses his new graphic novel, Killing and Dying (Oct. 6, 2015). “Adrian Tomine can draw, think, write and feel,” said Zadie Smith. “He sees everything, he knows everything; he’s in your apartment, he’s on the subway, he’s in your dreams.” |
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Books & Bagels: Jay Parini on Gore Vidal
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Sunday, October 25, 11 AM
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| The product of thirty years of friendship and conversation, Jay Parini’s Empire of Self: A Life of Gore Vidal (Oct. 13, Doubleday) is an intimate, authorized yet frank biography of one of the most accomplished, visible and controversial novelists and cultural figures of the past century. Books and Bagels events are thought-provoking Sunday talks by leading biographers, critics, editors and translators; they include a bagel brunch and an opportunity for informal conversation with the speaker and fellow audience members. |
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Reading: Yusef Komunyakaa & Wendell Pierce
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Thursday, October 29, 8:15 pm, From $22
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| The product of thirty years of friendship and conversation, Jay Parini’s Empire of Self: A Life of Gore Vidal (Oct. 13, Doubleday) is an intimate, authorized yet frank biography of one of the most accomplished, visible and controversial novelists and cultural figures of the past century. Books and Bagels events are thought-provoking Sunday talks by leading biographers, critics, editors and translators; they include a bagel brunch and an opportunity for informal conversation with the speaker and fellow audience members. |
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Sunday, November 1, 7:30 pm, From $22
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| Kay Ryan’s new book of poems is Erratic Facts (Oct. 6, Grove Press) and she makes one NYC stop to read from it – at 92Y. “Her lines have a contagious skepticism to them, leaving us to emerge from her poems feeling not cleansed but quieted,” wrote the Los Angeles Times. “That intense slowing is poetry’s great purpose—how it gets us to see.” |
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Tuesday, November 3, 8 pm, From $22
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| Author of the acclaimed epics Cloud Atlas, The Bone Clocks and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, David Mitchell makes his only New York appearance for his new novel Slade House (Oct. 27, Random House) – a time-bending thriller he started as a Twitter story and could not let go of. |
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Thursday, November 5, 8 pm, From $28
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| In his only New York appearance, John Irving visits 92Y to read from his new novel, Avenue of Mysteries (Nov. 3, Simon & Schuster), which follows an old man on a journey to the Phillipines and back into the dreams of his childhood. “It’s impossible to imagine the literary landscape without John Irving,” wrote Time magazine. “He is as close as one gets to a contemporary Dickens.” |
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Books & Bagels: Nabokov’s Letters to Véra
With Olga Voronina and Wyatt Mason
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Sunday, November 8, 11 AM, From $38
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| Now published for the first time in new translations by editors Olga Voronina and Brian Boyd, Nabokov’s Letters to Véra (Penguin)—his wife, muse and lifelong partner—tell a long and beguiling love story and document anew the creative energies of an brilliant artist who was always at work. |
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Books & Bagels: Adam Gopnik on Anthony Trollope
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Sunday, November 22, 11 am, From $38
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| In celebration of Anthony Trollope’s bicentenary, Adam Gopnik pays tribute to one of his favorite novelists. Wrote Gopnik: “Trollope is that rare thing: a strong writer with a trustworthy imagination.” |
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Reading & Discussion: Claudia Rankine
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Tuesday, December 8, 8:15 pm, From $22
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| Claudia Rankine reads from Citizen (Graywolf Press), her recent meditation on race in America, then sits for a conversation on art, trauma and social justice with clinicians from the William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis & Psychology. |
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A Celebration of Yehuda Amichai
With Robert Alter, Jonathan Galassi, Stanley Moss, Philip Schultz and Leon Wieseltier
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Thursday, December 10, 8:15 pm, From $22
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| A celebration of the Israeli poet of love and landscape upon publication of The Poetry of Yehuda Amichai (Nov. 3, FSG), a collection from Robert Alter that assembles the best of existing translations and his own new versions. |
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Reading: Salman Rushdie & László Krasznahorkai
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Monday, December 14, 8 pm, From $28
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| Salman Rushdie’s new novel, Two Years, Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights (Sept. 8, Random House), weaves history, myth, a timeless love story and the age-old conflict between good and evil. Rushdie splits the bill with a writer he’s a big fan of – Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai, winner of this year’s Booker Prize. “He is the contemporary Hungarian master of apocalypse who inspires comparison with Gogol and Melville,” wrote Susan Sontag. |
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A Celebration of Wisława Szymborska
With Charles Simic, Clare Cavanagh, Krystyna Dabrowska and Michal Rusinek
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Thursday, December 17, 8:15 pm, From $22
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| A celebration of the Polish Nobel Laureate upon publication of Map: Collected and Last Poems (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). “Her poetry had the gift of creating both the happiness of wisdom felt and the ecstatic happiness of the particulars of life fully imagined,” wrote Adam Gopnik. |
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| January 26: Jane Smiley & Tessa Hadley
February 1: Garrison Keillor
March 3: James McBride
March 17 — Howard Jacobson – reads from his new novel, Shylock is My Name; NYC exclusive
March 6: On Charlotte Brontë with Claire Harman (Books & Bagels)
March 24: Mary Karr & Helen Macdonald
April 7: Ben Lerner & Susan Howe – both will read their respective poetry
April 11: Anne Carson – she reads from her new book of poetry, Float
May 12: Louise Erdrich – she reads from her new novel, LaRose
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