World to get lit
A 2-week virtual fest by public library
Cooped-up New Yorkers can travel the world this week safely — with just their library cards.
The New York Public Library is holding its first-ever World Literature Festival — making great books from around the world accessible in English and highlighting literature for readers of other languages.
The two-week virtual festival, starting Monday, mixes online resources and live events geared to expanding literary horizons from the comfort of home.
“Following a challenging year, the World Literature Festival is an exciting opportunity to come together and learn from each other, highlighting the diverse programs and resources available at the library for all New Yorkers,” said Adriana Blancarte-Hayward, the library’s manager of outreach services.
Twenty-five novels from around the world that were originally written in languages from Albanian to Urdu and translated into English have been selected to headline the festival.
The books include “The Red-Haired Woman” by Nobel Prize-winner Orhan Pamuk translated from Turkish, “Black Moses” by Alain Mabanckou translated from French and “I Didn’t Talk” by Beatriz Bracher translated from Portuguese.
They are available for checkout at library branches around the city.
The library has complied lists of its most popular titles in a range of languages as well. Materials in the library system are available in more than 60 languages.
A series of virtual interviews with international authors begins on Wednesday with Jamaican-born writer Nicole Dennis-Benn.
The Brooklyn resident is author of the acclaimed novels “Here Comes the Sun” and “Patsy.”
Other interviews include Chinese poet and writer Ha Jin and Alexander Stessin, a doctor who has written about his experiences in “The New York Rounds.”
Many of the discussions will be conducted in the author’s native language, with live English translation.
The interviews will be available via Zoom.
New Yorkers will get a chance to explore their own neighborhoods with a festival event on April 21 that looks at the wide array of linguistic influences on the names of city streets, parks, playgrounds and boroughs by “native Lenape, Dutch settlers, British invaders and successive waves of immigrants.”
The event features Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, author of “Names of New York,” and “Maximum City” author Suketu Mehta.
Kids can sit in on multilingual online read-aloud sessions, featuring books from the
Caribbean, Latin America, China, Albania, Russia and elsewhere.
Parents can call a telephone line set up by the library system for recordings of children’s books in English, Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese and Russian.
The New York Public Library’s World Literature Festival runs through April 30.
Information and details are available on the nypl.org website.