On Monday, September 19, award-winning French novelist Maylis de Kerangal and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Viet Thanh Nguyen will read from their work in a reading presented by the Lewis Center for the Arts’ Program in Creative Writing and cosponsored by the Program in American Studies, Department of Comparative Literature, Council of the Humanities, and Program in Translation and Intercultural Communication at Princeton University. The reading, beginning at 4:30 p.m. in McCormick Hall, room 101 on the Princeton campus, is free and open to the public.

Fiction writer Maylis de Kerangal. Photo by Emmanuelle Marchadour

Maylis de Kerangal is the author of several novels in French, including Je marche sous un ciel de traîne (2000), La vie voyageuse (2003), Corniche Kennedy (2008), and Naissance d’un pont, published in English as Birth of a Bridge, winner of the Prix Franz Hessel and Prix Médicis in 2010. She has also published a collection of short stories, Ni fleurs ni couronnes (2006), and a novella, Tangente vers l’est, winner of the 2012 Prix Landerneau. In addition, she has published a fiction tribute to Kate Bush and Blondie titled Dans les rapides (2007). In 2014, her fifth novel, Réparer les vivants (The Heart), was published to wide acclaim and won the Grand Prix RTL-Lire and the Student Choice Novel of the Year from France Culture and Télérama. She lives in Paris.

Fiction writer Viet Thanh Nguyen. Photo by BeBe Jacobs

Viet Thanh Nguyen is the author of The Sympathizer, a New York Times bestseller and winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His other works include Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War, which was released in April 2016, and Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics in Asian America. Nguyen’s honors include the Edgar Award for Best First Novel from the Mystery Writers of America, the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction from the American Library Association, the First Novel Prize from the Center for Fiction, a Gold Medal in First Fiction from the California Book Awards, and the Asian/Pacific American Literature Award from the Asian/Pacific American Librarian Association. He is the Aerol Arnold Professor of English, and an associate professor of American Studies and Ethnicity, at the University of Southern California.

Nguyen will also present a talk entitled, “On Remembering Others: Vietnam and the Memory of War,” earlier on September 19 at 12 p.m. at a yet-to-be-determined venue on the Princeton campus. This talk, presented by the Program in American Studies, is also free and open to the public.

The Lewis Center’s Program in Creative Writing also annually presents the Althea Ward Clark W’21 Reading Series, which provides an opportunity for students, as well as all in the greater Princeton region, to hear and meet the best contemporary writers. These readings are free and open to the public, and they take place on select Wednesdays at 4:30 p.m. in the Berlind Theatre at McCarter Theatre Center. Scheduled in the 2016-2017 series are:

• Jenny Johnson and Joy Williams on September 19
• NoViolet Bulawayo and Valeria Luiselli on October 12
• Stephen King and Eileen Myles on November 16
• Paul Beatty and Marilyn Chin on February 8
• Douglas Kearney and Kirstin Valdez Quade on March 15
• John Ashbery and Jim Jarmusch on April 19