Document Type

Podcast

Publication Date

10-14-2010

Publisher

Black Mountain Institute

Abstract

Peter Hessler was the The New Yorker's correspondent in the People’s Republic of China, from 1996 to 2008. His first book, River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze, which recounts his experiences during two years in the Peace Corps, won the Kiriyama Prize and was short-listed for the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award. His second book, Oracle Bones, was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Award. His newest book, Country Driving: A Journey from Farm to Factory, a record of his journey from northern Chinese counties to the factory towns on southern China, appeared in 2010. His stories have been published in the Best American Travel Writing for 2001, 2004, and 2005.

Paul Theroux’s highly acclaimed novels include Picture Palace (winner of the Whitbread Prize for Fiction), Hotel Honolulu, My Other Life, Kowloon Tong, and The Mosquito Coast (adapted into a major motion picture). He has also published chronicles of his own travels by train throughout the world in renowned travel books, including Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, Dark Star Safari, Riding the Iron Rooster, The Great Railway Bazaar, The Old Patagonian Express, and The Happy Isles of Oceania. He lives in Hawaii and on Cape Cod.

Mary-Ann Tirone Smith is the author of eight novels, and co-author of a ninth. Her book Girls of Tender Age: A Memoir examines the murder of a classmate and her brother's undiagnosed autism (both taboo subjects for discussion in the nineteen-fifties working-class neighborhood of her childhood); it was selected by Maureen Corrigan, of National Public Radio, as one of the best works of nonfiction of 2006, and has been widely read by discussion groups and book clubs. A former Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon, Mary-Ann has taught fiction writing at Fairfield University and participated in writing seminars throughout the country, as well as in Ireland. Her book reviews have appeared in The New York Times, the Hartford Courant, the Boston Globe, and others. She lives in Connecticut.

Marnie Mueller is the author of three novels: Green Fires, partially based on her Peace Corps experiences in Ecuador; The Climate of the Country, set in Tule Lake Japanese American Segregation Camp where Mueller was born; and My Mother’s Island, set in her family’s Puerto Rico. Recipient of an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation, her work has been singled out by Barnes and Noble "Discover Great New Writers," the New York Times Book Review, and BookSense. Her current project is a non-fiction book, Triple Threat: The Life and Times of Mary Mon Toy Okada, about a Japanese-American showgirl interned during World War II.

Keywords

Authors; Authorship; Fiction; Literature; Travel writing

Disciplines

American Literature | Arts and Humanities | Literature in English, North America | Modern Literature | Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies

Language

English

Comments

Beam Music Center Doc Rando Recital Hall, UNLV, 7P.M.

Audio file size: 42.1 megabytes


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