Second in our series of six audio clips — relive the #BKBF magic of our most popular programs in 2017, thanks to the generous support of the Amazon Literary Partnership. Enjoy!
Moral Culpability in Global Crises
Novelists Lidia Yuknavitch (The Book of Joan), Jonathan Safran Foer (Here I Am), and Achy Obejas (The Tower of the Antilles) show that no matter the setting, characters share common struggles. Across time and place, these protagonists search for their role in a crisis larger than themselves – whether as rebel fighters in a futuristic police-state, Jewish-Americans coping with the conflict in the Middle East, and Cubans haunted by the islands they inhabit. Moderated by Michele Filgate.
About the Speakers
Michele Filgate (moderator)
Michele Filgate is a contributing editor at Literary Hub and on the board of the National Book Critics Circle. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Refinery29, Slice, The Paris Review Daily, Tin House, Gulf Coast, The Rumpus, Salon, Interview Magazine, Buzzfeed, The Barnes & Noble Review, Poets & Writers, The Boston Globe, The Brooklyn Quarterly, Time Out New York, O, The Oprah Magazine, Men’s Journal, Vulture, and other publications. She teaches creative nonfiction for The Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop and Catapult and is the founder of the Red Ink series.
Jonathan Safran Foer
Jonathan Safran Foer is the author of the recent novel Here I Am, as well as the novels Everything Is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and the nonfiction book Eating Animals. His work has received numerous awards and has been translated into thirty-eight languages.
Achy Obejas
Achy Obejas is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Ruins, Days of Awe, and three other books of fiction. She edited and translated (into English) the anthology Havana Noir, and has since translated works by Junot Díaz, Rita Indiana, Wendy Guerra, and many others. In 2014, she was awarded a USA Ford Fellowship for her writing and translation. She currently serves as the Distinguished Visiting Writer at Mills College in Oakland, California. The Tower of the Antilles is her latest work.
Lidia Yuknavitch
Lidia Yuknavitch is the author of the novel the Book of Joan and the National Bestselling novel The Small Backs of Children, winner of the 2016 Oregon Book Award’s Ken Kesey Award for Fiction as well as the Reader’s Choice Award, the novel Dora: A Headcase, and a critical book on war and narrative, Allegories of Violence. Her widely acclaimed memoir The Chronology of Water was a finalist for a PEN Center USA award for creative nonfiction and winner of a PNBA Award and the Oregon Book Award Reader’s Choice. A book based on her recent TED Talk, “The Misfit’s Manifesto”, is forthcoming this fall.
