"An Evening with Valeria Luiselli"

“The novel truly becomes novel again in Luiselli’s hands-electric, elastic, alluring, new... She is a superb chronicler of children: the daughter and son feel piercingly real- perceptive, irreplaceable...” - The New York Times

Exploring the experience of dislocation as a common theme across many projects, celebrated Mexican-born author and 2019 MacArthur Fellowship recipient Valeria Luiselli’s recent works synthesize her experiences as a court interpreter for unaccompanied child migrants caught in the labyrinth of U.S. immigration policy. These experiences, her attempts to document them, and the ethical dilemmas these efforts pose figure prominently in her latest novel. Lost Children Archive, named a New York Times “Top 10 Book of the Year” for 2019, is a fictionalized account of her own family’s road trip from New York to the U.S.- Mexico borderlands, with stories of the unfolding Central American migration crisis nested into the narrative.

Streamed live from the Luiselli’s home, this event features a reading from the author; an interview moderated by Carmen Giménez Smith, Virginia Tech professor of English and 2019 Guggenheim fellow; and a question-and-answer session with the audience.

Born in Mexico City and growing up in South Korea, South Africa, and India, Luiselli writes with dry humor and deftly controlled prose in both Spanish and English, often wrestling with the complexity of translation and draws from an unusually broad range of Latin American, American, and European literary traditions.

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Category: Arts | Books and Literature Time: 7:30 pm to 8:30 pm