Ta-Nehisi Coates, Laila Lalami among Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures authors
Susan Choi started her literary career as a fact checker for The New Yorker magazine, a job that has launched more than a few authors.
Her fifth novel, “Trust Exercise,” received the National Book Award in 2019. Set during the 1980s in a Texas high school, this carefully crafted drama looks honestly at sexual consent between teachers and students.
On Sept. 14, Ms. Choi opens the 30th season of literary evenings presented by Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures.
Terry Tempest Williams is an author and advocate for preserving America’s national parks and wilderness. Since 2017, the Utah native has been a writer in residence at Harvard Divinity School. Her new book, “Erosion: Essays of Undoing,” explores the deterioration of people’s faith in compassion, democracy, science and trust.” Ms.
Williams speaks on Oct. 12.
When Laila Lalami’s fourth novel, “The Moor’s Account,” was published in 2014, it garnered three literary awards and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. In her new nonfiction book, “Conditional Citizens,” Ms. Lalami looks at how America embraces immigrants with one arm while pushing them away with the other.
The author grew up in Morocco, was educated in Great Britain and became a U.S. citizen. Ms. Lalami speaks on Oct. 26.
Lily King is the author of the prize-winning novel “Euphoria.” In her new novel, “Writers & Lovers,” Ms. King paints a portrait of Casey Peabody, a 31-year-old golf prodigy and aspiring writer who is grieving for her late mother.
As she struggles to regain her emotional footing, Peabody searches for her voice as a writer while working in a restaurant kitchen. Ms. King speaks on Nov. 16.
Brian Greene is a theoretical physicist, Columbia University professor and author of “Until the End of Time,” which explores the cosmos and human beings’ desire to find meaning in it. His first book, “The Elegant Universe,” inspired a
PBS television special that won a 2003 Peabody Award. Mr. Greene speaks on Nov. 23.
Ta-Nehisi Coates is a leading intellectual who has written extensively on race and white supremacy. He also has created a Black Panther series and a Captain America series for Marvel Comics. His 2019 novel, “The Water Dancer,” unfolds the tale of Hiram Walker, a Virginia plantation slave who has a photographic memory. Mr. Coates speaks on Dec. 7.
David Treuer is an anthropologist and a member of the Ojibwe tribe, who grew up on Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota. His nonfiction book, published in 2019, is “The Heartbreak of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present.” He speaks on Jan. 18, 2021.
Karen Russell’s newest book is a collection called “Orange World and Other Stories.” Her 2011 novel, “Swamplandia!” recounts the exploits of a family of alligator wrestlers who operate a shabby animal park in Florida. Ms. Russell speaks on Feb. 22, 2021.
Ocean Vuong, author of the
novel “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous,” is an essayist, novelist and poet. He was born in Vietnam, grew up in Hartford, Conn., and did not learn to read until age 11.
Last September, he was among 26 people who received a $625,000 grant, given over five years, from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. He speaks on March 22, 2021.
Bernardine Evaristo is a native of London. A critic, novelist and poet, she is the author of eight novels. Her most recent book, “Girl, Woman, Other,” explores the meaning of identity in different generations of black British women. The book won the Man Booker
Prize for fiction in 2019. She will speak on April 5, 2021.
All lectures are held on Mondays at 7:30 p.m. in Oakland’s Carnegie Music Hall. For tickets, visit www.pittsburghlectures.org or call 412622-8866.