Poets & Writers Theater

“When you have a name like Alejandra Kim, teachers always stare at you like you’re a typo on the attendance sheet.” In this Politics and Prose event, Patricia Park reads from her debut YA novel, Imposter Syndrome and Other Confessions of Alejandra Kim (Crown Books for Young Readers, 2023), and speaks about shifting from writing adult fiction to YA fiction with author Dolen Perkins-Valdez.

“You can slash a book. There are different ways to measure depth, but not many readers measure a book’s depth with a knife, making a cut from the first page all the way down to the last.” Yiyun Li reads from her novel The Book of Goose (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022) in this Politics and Prose event with Maud Casey in Washington, D.C.

“It has taken me almost ten years to get to this point of publishing this book.” In this Politics and Prose Bookstore video, Nawaaz Ahmed talks about what led him to write his debut novel, Radiant Fugitives (Counterpoint, 2021), which is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“‘Sometimes it’s a relief,’ he said lugubriously, ‘to see a face you recognize in an unfamiliar place. Other times you think, oh no, not him again,’” reads Rachel Cusk from her novel Transit (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017), the second volume in her Outline trilogy, in this 2017 reading at Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington, D.C.

In this Politics and Prose Live video, Tahmima Anam reads from her new novel, The Startup Wife (Scribner, 2021), and discusses writing about marriage and the start-up world with author and editor Megha Majumdar.

In this Politics and Prose Bookstore video, Eric Nguyen speaks about his debut novel, Things We Lost to the Water (Knopf, 2021). Nguyen is featured in “First Fiction 2021” in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“I had written two books on slavery, and writing about slavery is to be in the center of a very difficult psychic territory, and so when I started doing the research for this project, I was very hungry for beauty—and I think I discovered it here,” says Saidiya Hartman about writing her book Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals (Norton, 2019), winner of the 2019 National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism, in this 2019 reading at Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington, D.C.

“Hannah dreams the family buries her mother, a woman they haven’t seen in more than forty years.” Eman Quotah celebrates the book launch for her debut novel, Bride of the Sea (Tin House, 2021), with author Susan Muaddi Darraj in this Politics and Prose virtual event. The novel is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“When people say nothing has changed, we’re trying to say through March, come and walk in my shoes.” In this 2013 Politics and Prose Bookstore video, the late congressman and author John Lewis speaks about the personal experiences that led to the creation of his award–winning graphic memoir trilogy March, cowritten by Andrew Aydin and illustrated and lettered by Nate Powell. Lewis died at the age of eighty on July 17, 2020.

“What I was interested in was the idea of this character committing to whiteness as this act, and the idea that race can be performed but at the same time it has these real implications in your life.” In this Politics and Prose virtual event, Brit Bennett speaks about the topics of duality, passing, and family in her latest novel, The Vanishing Half (Riverhead Books, 2020), with New York Times Magazine editor Jazmine Hughes.

“In those brown albums, our family at times looks like a family and at other times not.” Porochista Khakpour reads from her new book, Brown Album: Essays on Exile and Identity (Vintage, 2020), and talks to author Tania James in this virtual Politics and Prose Bookstore event video. 

“This book really is inspired by my grandfather, and a lot of it is actually true.” In this Politics and Prose video, Louise Erdrich talks about her most recent novel, The Night Watchman (Harper, 2020), which is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“It was like the story of your relations with others...was constantly being recorded and updated, and you could check it at any time.” Elif Batuman reads from her debut novel, The Idiot (Penguin Press, 2017), a semifinalist for the 2018 Women’s Prize for Fiction, at Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington, D.C.

“The earth was running out of resources, global warming was beginning to be recognized as science fact and not science fiction, and if man was to evolve to play a part in things...we'd have to seed life elsewhere—on Mars, to begin with.” At Politics and Prose Bookstore, T. C. Boyle reads from his latest novel, The Terranauts (Ecco, 2016).

Politics and Prose Bookstore owner Lissa Muscatine and head book buyer Mark Laframboise talk about their favorite fiction books of 2016, beginning with Imagine Me Gone (Little, Brown, 2016) by Adam Haslett, who was featured in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

"Home swells as a sentiment because it has disappeared as an achievable reality." James Wood, literary critic for the New Yorker and a professor of practice at Harvard University, reads from The Nearest Thing to Life, a collection of essays from the Mandel Lectures in Humanities, a book series published by Brandeis University Press.

"I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces." Viet Thanh Nguyen reads from his debut novel, The Sympathizer (Grove Press, 2015), for which he was awarded the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

"I suppose that's exactly the problem—I wasn't raised to know any better." Novelist and poet Paul Beatty reads from his novel The Sellout (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015), which was awarded the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award in fiction, at Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington, D.C. Beatty is also a finalist for the 2016 Man Booker Prize.

“Writing is my true, true joy, and that’s what makes me feel alive and nourished.” Erika L. Sánchez talks about her memoir, Crying in the Bathroom (Viking, 2022), and the process of book promotion and being a writer with Sandra Cisneros in this virtual event for Politics and Prose, produced in partnership with Books and Books and Café con Libros. Sánchez’s memoir is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“‘There’s a war,’ she told them. ‘People are fighting, bad things are happening.’” Hala Alyan, who is featured in “First Fiction 2017” in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, reads from her debut novel, Salt Houses (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017), at Politics and Prose Bookstore.