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MEMBER BLOG TAG: delillo

Thursday, April 26, 2007 3:36PM
 
Town Hall Readings: Writing Home
Tags: Writing Home, Salman Rushdie, Gordimer, Gaiman, Desai, Youssef, tostaya, DeLillo, Tafdrup, Martin
 
The prospect of sitting through an evening of ten--count ‘em, ten--readings in one evening was a bit daunting, even given the impressive array of talent on display last night at Town Hall. Thankfully, introductions were dispensed with. Each writer merely appeared onstage one after the other, and if there was any question as to who they were, you simply referred to the program guides handed out by ushers as you walked in. First up was Steve Martin, reading from his to-be published memoir of his beginnings as a stand-up comic. True to form, Martin was his funny, self-deprecating self. Also, as a writer closer to the beginning of his career than the end of it, I was reassured to hear that even...
 
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Thursday, April 26, 2007 12:18PM
 
Best Ticket in Town
Tags: World Voices, Nadine Gordimer, Salman Rushdie, Kiran Desai, Steve Martin, Neil Gaiman, Alain Mabanckou, Saadi Youssef, Tatyana Tolstaya, Don DeLillo, Pia Tafdrup
 
In an age of mass migration,when human herds cross borders in flight from conflict, poverty, disease, violence, what is home? How and where do we find it?

Nadine Gordimer, the penultimate reader in last night's PEN readings on "Writing Home," spoke of the millions of refugees from wars and conflicts. Silver-haired, dressed in gray,  with a long white-bordered stole, she drew the photographers from the shadows at Town Hall. Just before reading the first sentence of her powerful story "The Ultimate Safari," she said, "Forget about me, the old woman. It's being narrated by an eleven year old girl." Her narrator's mother has disappeared and her father is in the civil war in Mozambique. With her grandparents and two brothers, she makes the...
 
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