LIVE! From City Lights

City Lights in conjunction with the Asian American Writers’ Workshop present K-Ming Chang in conversation with Lily Philpott, celebrating her new collection "Gods of Want: Stories," published by One World Books. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "Gods of Want: Stories" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/new-fiction-in-hardcover/gods-of-want-stories/ K-Ming Chang is a Kundiman fellow, a Lambda Literary Award finalist, and a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree. She is the author of the novel "Bestiary," which was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. Lily Philpott runs and manages AAWW events, fellowships, and workshops. She has many years of experience curating literary programs in New York City. Previously, she served as the Public Programs Manager at PEN America, where she launched the PEN Out Loud event series with the Strand Book Store, co-curated a summer event series with the Brooklyn Museum, and coordinated Lit Crawl NYC. She has also worked on public programs and development events at the Guggenheim Museum and the New York Public Library, respectively, and is a member of the Brooklyn Book Festival’s International Literature Committee and an Advisory Board Member of the U.K. based publisher And Other Stories. The Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW) is a national literary nonprofit dedicated to publishing and incubating work by Asian and Asian diasporic writers, poets, and artists. Since their founding in 1991, they have provided a countercultural literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice. Find out more at: https://aaww.org This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

Ingrid Rojas Contreras in conversation with Esmé Weijun Wang, celebrating the launch of "The Man Who Could Move Clouds: A Memoir," published by Doubleday. This live event took place in Kerouac Alley, between City Lights and Vesuvio Cafe, and was hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "The Man Who Could Move Clouds: A Memoir" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/new-nonfiction-in-hardcover/man-who-could-move-clouds/ Ingrid Rojas Contreras was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia. Her first novel "Fruit of the Drunken Tree" was the silver medal winner in First Fiction from the California Book Awards, and a New York Times editor’s choice. Her essays and short stories have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, The Believer, and Zyzzyva, among others. She lives in California. Esmé Weijun Wang is a novelist and essayist. She is the author of the New York Times-bestselling essay collection, "The Collected Schizophrenias"(2019), and a debut novel, "The Border of Paradise," which was called a Best Book of 2016 by NPR. She was named by Granta as one of the “Best of Young American Novelists” in 2017 and won the Whiting Award in 2018. Born in the Midwest to Taiwanese parents, she is the founder of The Unexpected Shape™ Writing Academy for ambitious writers living with limitations. She can be found at esmewang.com and on Twitter @esmewang. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

John Nichols in conversation with Congressman Ro Khanna, discussing Nichol’s new book "Coronavirus Criminals and Pandemic Profiteers: Accountability for Those Who Caused the Crisis," published by Nation Books. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "Coronavirus Criminals and Pandemic Profiteers: Accountability for Those Who Caused the Crisis" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/coronavirus-criminals-pandemic-profi/ John Nichols is the national affairs correspondent for The Nation magazine, and the author or co-author of more than a dozen books on media and democracy. He is a regular guest on radio and television programs, and has been featured in a number of documentaries based on his writing and reporting. A co-founder of the media reform group Free Press, he has twice keynoted world congresses of the International Federation of Journalists. Of Nichols, author Gore Vidal said, “Of all the giant slayers now afoot in the great American desert, John Nichols’s sword is the sharpest.” Ro Khanna is a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California’s 17th congressional district since 2017. He has also served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary in the United States Department of Commerce under President Barack Obama from August 8, 2009, to August 2011. He is one of only six members of the U.S. House of Representatives, and ten members of Congress, who do not take campaign contributions from political action committees (PACs). This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

Dodie Bellamy in conversation with Chris Kraus, celebrating Dodie Bellamy's two new books; "Bee Reaved" and "The Letters of Mina Harker," published by Semiotext(e)/Native Agents. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "Bee Reaved" & "The Letters of Mina Harker" directly from City Lights here: "Bee Reaved" - https://citylights.com/staff-picks/bee-reaved/ "The Letters of Mina Harker" - https://citylights.com/general-fiction/letters-of-mina-harker/ Dodie Bellamy's writing focuses on sexuality, politics and narrative experimentation, challenging the distinctions between fiction, the essay and poetry. In 2018–19 she was the subject of "On Our Mind", a yearlong series of public events, commissioned essays and reading group meetings organized by CCA Wattis ICA. With Kevin Killian, she coedited "Writers Who Love Too Much: New Narrative 1977–1997." A compendium of essays on Bellamy's work, "Dodie Bellamy Is on Our Mind", was published in 2020 by Wattis ICA/Semiotext(e). Chris Kraus is a filmmaker and the author of "I Love Dick" and "Aliens & Anorexia", and coeditor of "Hatred of Capitalism: A Semiotext(e) Reader". "Index" called her "one of the most subversive voices in American fiction." Her work has been praised for its damning intelligence, vulnerability and dazzling speed. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

Amitava Kumar in conversation with Aleksandar Hemon, discussing Amitava Kumar's new novel "A Time Outside This Time" published by Alfred Knopf. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "A Time Outside This Time" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/new-fiction-in-hardcover/time-outside-this-time/ Amitava Kumar is a writer and journalist. He was born in Ara, India, and grew up in the nearby town of Patna, famous for its corruption, crushing poverty, and delicious mangoes. Kumar is the author of the novel "Immigrant, Montana," as well as several other books of nonfiction and fiction. He lives in Poughkeepsie, New York, where he is Professor of English on the Helen D. Lockwood Chair at Vassar College. Aleksandar Hemon is the author of "The Lazarus Project," which was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and three books of short stories: "The Question of Bruno;" "Nowhere Man," which was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; and "Love and Obstacles." He was the recipient of a 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship and a "genius grant" from the MacArthur Foundation, and the 2020 Dos Passos Prize. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

Farah Jasmine Griffin in conversation with Robin D.G. Kelley, discussing her new book "Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature," published by W.W. Norton & Co. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Josiah Luis Alderete. You can purchase copies of "Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/new-nonfiction-in-hardcover/read-until-you-understand/ Farah Jasmine Griffin is a professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of "Who Set You Flowin'?": The African-American Migration Narrative, and the coeditor of "A Stranger in the Village: Two Centuries of African-American Travel Writing." She has been the recipient of fellowships from the Ford Foundation and the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe College. She lives in Philadelphia. Robin D.G. Kelley is a scholar history of social movements in the U.S., the African Diaspora, and Africa; black intellectuals; music and visual culture; Surrealism, Marxism, among other things. His essays have appeared in a wide variety of professional journals as well as general publications, including the Journal of American History, American Historical Review, The Nation, Monthly Review, New York Times, Color Lines, Counterpunch, Souls, Black Renaissance/Renaissance Noir, Social Text ,The Black Scholar, Journal of Palestine Studies, and Boston Review, for which he serves as Contributing Editor. He is the author of "Africa Speaks, America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times" (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012); "Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original" (The Free Press, 2009); "Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination" (Beacon Press, 2002); with Howard Zinn and Dana Frank, "Three Strikes: The Fighting Spirit of Labor's Last Century" (Beacon Press, 2001); "Yo’ Mama’s Disfunktional!: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America"(Boston: Beacon Press, 1997); "Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class" (New York: The Free Press, 1994); "Into the Fire: African Americans Since 1970" (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996) [Vol. 10 of the Young Oxford History of African Americans series]; "Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression" (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1990). This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

In conjunction with Zyzzyva, City Lights presents Gabriela Alemán and Dick Cluster in conversation with Oscar Villalon, celebrating the publication of "Family Album: Stories," published by City Lights Books. "Family Album" is Ecuadorian author Gabriela Alemán’s rollicking follow-up to her acclaimed English-language debut, "Poso Wells." This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "Family Album: Stories" directly from City Lights at a 30% discount here: https://citylights.com/family-album-stories/ Gabriela Alemán was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She received a PhD at Tulane University and holds a Master’s degree in Latin American Literature from Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar. She currently resides in Quito, Ecuador. Her literary honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2006; member of Bogotá 39, a 2007 selection of the most important up-and-coming writers in Latin America in the post-Boom generation; one of five finalists for the 2015 Premio Hispanoamericano de Cuento Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia) for her short story collection "La muerte silba un blues;" and winner of several prizes for critical essays on literature and film. Her novel "Poso Wells" was published in English translation by City Lights in 2018. Oscar Villalon is the managing editor at the literary journal ZYZZYVA. His writing has appeared in Freeman’s, the Virginia Quarterly Review, The Believer, Stranger’s Guide, Literary Hub, and other publications, and in the anthology There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love: Letters from a Crisis (Vintage). A former board member of the National Book Critics Circle, and a former book editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, he lives in San Francisco. Dick Cluster is a writer and translator based in Oakland, California. His original work includes three novels and two books of history, most recently "The History of Havana" (with Rafael Hernández). Other Cuban writers he has translated include Aida Bahr, Pedro de Jesús, and Abel Prieto. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

City Lights in conjunction with the Middle Eastern Children’s Alliance and The Markaz Review present Mosab Abu Toha in conversation with Mary Karr, celebrating the publication of "Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza," published by City Lights Books. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "Things You May Find in My Ear" directly from City Lights at a 30% discount here: https://citylights.com/general-poetry/things-you-may-find-hidden-in-my-ear/ Mosab Abu Toha is a Palestinian poet, scholar, and librarian who was born in Gaza and has spent his life there. A graduate in English language teaching and literature, he taught English at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) schools in Gaza from 2016 until 2019, and is the founder of the Edward Said Library, Gaza’s first English-language library. In 2019-2020, Abu Toha was a Visiting Poet in the Department of Comparative Literature at Harvard University; a Visiting Librarian at Harvard’s Houghton Library; and a Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative Fellow in the Harvard Divinity School. In 2020, Abu Toha gave talks and readings at the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, and the University of Arizona. He also spoke at the American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter Meeting held in Philadelphia in January 2020. In October 2021, University of Notre Dame’s Literatures, Annihilation, Exile, and Resistance lecture series hosted Abu Toha to speak about his poetry and work in Gaza. Abu Toha is a columnist for Arrowsmith Press, and his writings from Gaza have appeared in The Nation, Arrowsmith Press, and Literary Hub. His poems have been published on the Poetry Foundation’s website, in Poetry Magazine, Banipal, Solstice, The Markaz Review, The New Arab, Peripheries, and other journals. Mary Karr is an award-winning poet and best-selling memoirist. She is the author of the critically-acclaimed and New York Times best-selling memoirs "The Liars’ Club," "Cherry," and "Lit," as well as "The Art of Memoir," and five poetry collections, most recently "Tropic of Squalor." Karr is also a songwriter, having collaborated with Rodney Crowell, Norah Jones, Lucinda Williams and others on a country album called KIN. The Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) works to protect the rights and improve the lives of children in the Middle East through aid, empowerment and education. In the Middle East, MECA provides humanitarian aid, partners with community organizations to run projects for children, and supports income-generation projects. In the US and internationally, MECA raises awareness about the lives of children in the region and encourages meaningful action. Since 1988, MECA has delivered $29 million in aid to Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon. The Markaz Review is a literary arts publication and cultural institution that curates content and programs on the greater Middle East and our communities in diaspora. The Markaz signifies “the center” in Arabic, as well as Persian, Turkish, Hebrew and Urdu. Visit https://themarkaz.org/ This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

D. S. Marriott in conversation with Frank B. Wilderson III, celebrating the publication of D. S. Marriott’s "Before Whiteness: City Lights Spotlight No. 21," published by City Lights Books. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and was hosted by Peter Maravelis with an opening statement by Garrett Caples. You can purchase "Before Whiteness: City Lights Spotlight No. 21" directly from City Lights at a 30% discount here: https://citylights.com/general-poetry/before-whiteness/ Poet and scholar D.S. Marriott was born in Nottingham and educated at the University of Sussex, UK. He is the author of the poetry collections "Incognegro"(Salt, 2006), "Hoodoo Voodoo" (Shearsman, 2008), "The Bloods" (Shearsman, 2011), and "Duppies" (Commune Editions, 2019). His chapbooks include "In Neuter" (Equipage, 2012) and "Lative" (Equipage, 1992). His work is sometimes associated with the Cambridge school of poetry. In his critical and creative work, Marriott, of Jamaican heritage, draws on postcolonial thought and thinkers such as Frantz Fanon and is a leading theorist of Afro-pessimism. His critical books include "On Black Men" (Edinburgh University Press and Columbia University Press, 2000), "Haunted Life" (Rutgers University Press, 2007), and "Whither Fanon? Studies in the Blackness of Being" (Stanford University Press, 2018). He has taught at many universities and is currently based in Oakland, CA. Frank B. Wilderson III is a writer, dramatist, filmmaker and critic. He is a full professor of drama and African American studies at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of "Red, White & Black: Cinema and the Structure of US Antagonisms" (Duke University Press, 2010), "Incognegro: A Memoir of Exile & Apartheid" (South End Press, 2008), "Gramsci’s black marx: Whither the slave in civil society?" (Social Identities 9.2 , 2003) and "Afropessimism" (Liveright, 2020). He has received numerous honors for his work including The Eisner Prize for Creative Achievement of the Highest Order, The Maya Angelou Award for Best Fiction Portraying the Black Experience in America, an American book Award, amongst others. Wilderson has been described as one of the first writers in the tradition of Afro-pessimism. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

An appreciation of Jack Kerouac’s unique contribution to American literature with talks by Ann Charters, Jean-Christophe Cloutier, Ann Douglas, Tim Hunt, Joyce Johnson, Hassan Melehy, and Regina Weinreich, with readings by Tony Torn, and a birthday greeting by David Amram. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis. On Thursday, March 10, 2022, City Lights, at the birthplace of the San Francisco Renaissance and the Beat movement, celebrated Jack Kerouac’s centenary, with an illuminating exploration of his writing. Moving beyond the hype and fetishization of his personality, some of the country's leading Kerouac scholars take a deep dive into his work. Learn about books you haven’t yet read, his innovations in prose, the influence of his Franco-American background and how he discovered his unique voice. City Light features one of the largest selection of Jack Kerouac books in the world. Check out our stock at this link: https://citylights.com/author/jack-kerouac/ This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation/