Four novelists grapple with motherhood and the complex web of emotions – revulsion, rebellion, reconciliation, and redemption – it engenders. Susie Boyt (Loved and Missed), Kate Briggs (The Long Form), and Guadalupe Nettel (Still Born, translated by Rosalind Harvey) discuss the fall out and growth of their characters as they embrace or reject social expectations and experiences of bearing a child and mothering.  Moderated by Lauren LeBlanc, board member of the National Book Critics Circle.

In this virtual conversation, widely acclaimed Latin American writers Ariel Dorfman and Mariana Enriquez convene to discuss their literary obsessions and most recent publications. Ariel Dorfman’s newest book, The Suicide Museum, pushes readers to reconsider their understanding of the novel as a genre, as it moves deftly from an engrossing investigation of the death of Chilean president Salvador Allende in the 1973 military coup, to a deep and philosophical exploration of family, fascism, and exile, drawing on historical events. Mariana Enriquez’s newest title, Our Share of Night, translated by Megan McDowell, is a masterful and supernatural exploration of grief, brutality, and the tangled webs that connect family and fate. Both books draw inspiration from turbulent periods in South American history, illuminating daily life while seeking to understand the enormity of the historical violence.  Moderated by Idra Novey (Take What You Need).