Brit Bennett, Charles Yu join authors to speak during virtual Ten Evenings
Brit Bennett, author of a bestselling novel about a Black woman passing as white, will speak here Sept. 20 to open the 2021-22 series Ten Evenings presented by Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures. The New York Times ranked “The Vanishing Half” among its 10 best books of 2020.
All lectures are on Mondays at 7:30 p.m. Through December, authors will appear virtually and links will be sent to subscribers and ticket buyers. Virtual subscriptions for the 2021/2022 season ($130) are available now and single ticket sales ($15) will start July 6 at pittsburghlectures.org.
Charles Yu, who speaks Oct. 18, is the author of four books plus televisions scripts for three series — “Westworld,” “Legion” and “Lodge 49.” His novel “Interior Chinatown” won the 2020 National Book Award. The novel satirizes Hollywood’s stereotyping of Asian people while examining assimilation, immigration, race and pop culture.
Nov. 8’s speaker is Lawrence Wright, a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine who wrote “The End of October,” a book about the COVID-19 pandemic’s origins, repercussions and the battle to contain it. His book “The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/ 11” received the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction. He also wrote “Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief,” published in 2013.
Maggie O’Farrell, the speaker on Nov. 22, was born in Northern Ireland and grew up in Scotland. The author of nine books, her lyrical novel “Hamnet” imagines the death of William Shakespeare’s son during the bubonic plague. The book won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction this year.
Yaa Gyasi is the author of “Transcendent Kingdom,” a portrait of an immigrant family from Ghana ravaged by addiction and depression. Her earlier novel, “Homegoing,” received the PEN/ Hemingway award for best first book. She speaks on Dec. 6.
The second half of the season begins Jan. 24 with Douglas Stuart, author of “Shuggie Bain,” a debut novel that won the 2020 Man
Booker Prize. Set in Scotland, it’s the tale of Hugh “Shuggie” Bain, who lives in decrepit public housing in Glasgow while caring for his alcoholic mother.
Ayad Akhtar (Feb. 21)is the author of“Homeland Elegies,” ranked one of the 10 best books of 2020 by The New York Times. His first produced play, “Disgraced,” won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for drama.
George Saunders, who speaks March 21,is the author of “Lincoln in the Bardo,” a novel thatreceived the 2017 Man Booker Prize. In his latest work,“A Swim in a Pond in the Rain,”he analyzes stories by Anton Chekhov, Nikolai Gogal, Leo Tolstoy and Ivan Turgenev.
Robin Wall Kimmerer (April 11) is a trained botanist, enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and author of “Braiding Sweetgrass,” which received the Sigurd OlsonNature Writing Award.
Isabel Wilkerson (May 9, 2022) is the first Black woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for feature writing for her coverage of Midwest floods in 1993. She is the author of “The Warmth of Other Suns” and a new book, “Caste: The Origins of our Discontents,” which examines how a hidden caste system shapes American life.
Eight of the 10 authors are appearing in the Ten Evenings series for the first time. Saunders spoke at the lecture series in 2013 and Wilkerson appeared in 2012.
If gathering in Carnegie Music Hall is permitted after January, ticket holders will have the option to upgrade to in-person seating or continue to attend virtually by viewing live-streamed lectures from the music hall.