The Althea Ward Clark W’21 Reading Series, presented by the Lewis Center for the Arts’ Program in Creative Writing at Princeton University, continues the 2024-25 season with a reading by National Book Award-winning poet Don Mee Choi, author of the KOR-US trilogy and National Book Award-winning fiction writer Samanta Schweblin, author of the story collection Seven Empty Houses. The reading begins at 6:00 p.m. on October 29 at Labyrinth Books in Princeton. The event is free and open to the public, with the authors’ books available to purchase and have signed. The bookstore is an accessible venue. Guests in need of access accommodations are invited to contact the Lewis Center at LewisCenter@princeton.edu at least one week prior to the event date.
Don Mee Choi. Photo credit: Song Got
orn in Seoul, South Korea, Don Mee Choi is the author of the KOR-US trilogy: Mirror Nation (Wave Books, 2024), the National Book Award-winning collection DMZ Colony (Wave Books, 2020), and Hardly War (Wave Books, 2016). She is a recipient of fellowships from the MacArthur, Guggenheim, Lannan, and Whiting Foundations, as well as the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program. In 2021, Choi was selected as one of the inaugural Royal Society of Literature International Writers. In addition to her own writing, Choi’s translations from Korean to English of Kim Hyesoon’s poetry have received accolades, including the 2019 International Griffin Poetry Prize for Autobiography of Death and the 2023 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry for Phantom Pain Wings. She was a 2021 Picador guest professor at Leipzig University and has offered many poetry workshops at universities across the United States.
This fall at Princeton, Choi is the Bain-Swiggett Visiting Professor and Visiting Lecturer in Poetry in the Department of English. On October 22 at 4:30 p.m., Choi will deliver a public lecture on “The Poetics of Translation” at East Pyne Hall on the University campus, presented by the Department of English’s Bain-Swiggett Fund and cosponsored by the Program in Translation and Intercultural Communication. Her October 29 reading is supported in part by The Department of English’s Bain-Swiggett Fund.
Samanta Schweblin. Photo credit: Suhrkamp Verlag
Samanta Schweblin is the winner of the 2022 National Book Award for Translated Literature for her latest story collection, Seven Empty Houses. Her debut novel, Fever Dream, was a finalist for the International Booker Prize, and her novel Little Eyes and story collection A Mouthful of Birds were both longlisted for the same prize. Chosen by Granta as one of the 22 best writers in Spanish under the age of 35, Schweblin has won numerous prestigious awards around the world including the famed El Premio Iberoamericano de las Letras Jose Donoso in 2022, which established her as one of the luminaries of contemporary literature. Schweblin’s books have been translated into over 40 languages, and her work has appeared in English in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Harper’s Magazine, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. Her forthcoming short story collection, Good & Evil and Other Stories, will be published by Knopf in September 2025. Originally from Buenos Aires, Schweblin lives in Berlin.
The Lewis Center’s Program in Creative Writing 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. All readings, unless otherwise noted, take place at 6:00 p.m. at Labyrinth Books and are free and open to the public.
Additional readings in the 2024-25 series include:
- November 19 — Fall student reading featuring new work by creative writing students (5 p.m. at Chancellor Green)
- February 18 — Reading by Douglas Stuart and Hanif Abdurraqib
- March 18 — Reading by Marilyn Hacker and Ayana Mathis
- April 15 — Spring student reading featuring new work by creative writing students (5 p.m. at Chancellor Green)
- April 21 & 22 — Creative writing seniors read from their independent work in fiction, poetry, screenwriting, and literary translation (4:30 p.m. at Prospect House)
Visit the Lewis Center website to learn more about the Program in Creative Writing, the Lewis Center for the Arts, and the more than 100 public performances, exhibitions, readings, screenings, concerts, lectures, and special events presented by the Lewis Center each year, most of them free.
