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John Nichols in Conversation with Congressman Ro Khanna Jul 22, 2022

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John Nichols in conversation with Congressman Ro Khanna, discussing Nichol’s new book "Coronavirus Criminals and Pandemic Profiteers: Accountability for Those Who Caused the Crisis," published by Nation Books. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "Coronavirus Criminals and Pandemic Profiteers: Accountability for Those Who Caused the Crisis" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/coronavirus-criminals-pandemic-profi/ John Nichols is the national affairs correspondent for The Nation magazine, and the author or co-author of more than a dozen books on media and democracy. He is a regular guest on radio and television programs, and has been featured in a number of documentaries based on his writing and reporting. A co-founder of the media reform group Free Press, he has twice keynoted world congresses of the International Federation of Journalists. Of Nichols, author Gore Vidal said, “Of all the giant slayers now afoot in the great American desert, John Nichols’s sword is the sharpest.” Ro Khanna is a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California’s 17th congressional district since 2017. He has also served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary in the United States Department of Commerce under President Barack Obama from August 8, 2009, to August 2011. He is one of only six members of the U.S. House of Representatives, and ten members of Congress, who do not take campaign contributions from political action committees (PACs). This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

Dodie Bellamy in Conversation with Chris Kraus Jul 15, 2022

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Dodie Bellamy in conversation with Chris Kraus, celebrating Dodie Bellamy's two new books; "Bee Reaved" and "The Letters of Mina Harker," published by Semiotext(e)/Native Agents. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "Bee Reaved" & "The Letters of Mina Harker" directly from City Lights here: "Bee Reaved" - https://citylights.com/staff-picks/bee-reaved/ "The Letters of Mina Harker" - https://citylights.com/general-fiction/letters-of-mina-harker/ Dodie Bellamy's writing focuses on sexuality, politics and narrative experimentation, challenging the distinctions between fiction, the essay and poetry. In 2018–19 she was the subject of "On Our Mind", a yearlong series of public events, commissioned essays and reading group meetings organized by CCA Wattis ICA. With Kevin Killian, she coedited "Writers Who Love Too Much: New Narrative 1977–1997." A compendium of essays on Bellamy's work, "Dodie Bellamy Is on Our Mind", was published in 2020 by Wattis ICA/Semiotext(e). Chris Kraus is a filmmaker and the author of "I Love Dick" and "Aliens & Anorexia", and coeditor of "Hatred of Capitalism: A Semiotext(e) Reader". "Index" called her "one of the most subversive voices in American fiction." Her work has been praised for its damning intelligence, vulnerability and dazzling speed. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

Amitava Kumar in Conversation with Aleksandar Hemon Jul 01, 2022

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Amitava Kumar in conversation with Aleksandar Hemon, discussing Amitava Kumar's new novel "A Time Outside This Time" published by Alfred Knopf. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "A Time Outside This Time" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/new-fiction-in-hardcover/time-outside-this-time/ Amitava Kumar is a writer and journalist. He was born in Ara, India, and grew up in the nearby town of Patna, famous for its corruption, crushing poverty, and delicious mangoes. Kumar is the author of the novel "Immigrant, Montana," as well as several other books of nonfiction and fiction. He lives in Poughkeepsie, New York, where he is Professor of English on the Helen D. Lockwood Chair at Vassar College. Aleksandar Hemon is the author of "The Lazarus Project," which was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and three books of short stories: "The Question of Bruno;" "Nowhere Man," which was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; and "Love and Obstacles." He was the recipient of a 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship and a "genius grant" from the MacArthur Foundation, and the 2020 Dos Passos Prize. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

Farah Jasmine Griffin in Conversation with Robin D.G. Kelley Jun 17, 2022

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Farah Jasmine Griffin in conversation with Robin D.G. Kelley, discussing her new book "Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature," published by W.W. Norton & Co. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Josiah Luis Alderete. You can purchase copies of "Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/new-nonfiction-in-hardcover/read-until-you-understand/ Farah Jasmine Griffin is a professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of "Who Set You Flowin'?": The African-American Migration Narrative, and the coeditor of "A Stranger in the Village: Two Centuries of African-American Travel Writing." She has been the recipient of fellowships from the Ford Foundation and the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe College. She lives in Philadelphia. Robin D.G. Kelley is a scholar history of social movements in the U.S., the African Diaspora, and Africa; black intellectuals; music and visual culture; Surrealism, Marxism, among other things. His essays have appeared in a wide variety of professional journals as well as general publications, including the Journal of American History, American Historical Review, The Nation, Monthly Review, New York Times, Color Lines, Counterpunch, Souls, Black Renaissance/Renaissance Noir, Social Text ,The Black Scholar, Journal of Palestine Studies, and Boston Review, for which he serves as Contributing Editor. He is the author of "Africa Speaks, America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times" (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012); "Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original" (The Free Press, 2009); "Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination" (Beacon Press, 2002); with Howard Zinn and Dana Frank, "Three Strikes: The Fighting Spirit of Labor's Last Century" (Beacon Press, 2001); "Yo’ Mama’s Disfunktional!: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America"(Boston: Beacon Press, 1997); "Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class" (New York: The Free Press, 1994); "Into the Fire: African Americans Since 1970" (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996) [Vol. 10 of the Young Oxford History of African Americans series]; "Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression" (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1990). This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

Gabriela Alemán and Dick Cluster in Conversation with Oscar Villalon Jun 10, 2022

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In conjunction with Zyzzyva, City Lights presents Gabriela Alemán and Dick Cluster in conversation with Oscar Villalon, celebrating the publication of "Family Album: Stories," published by City Lights Books. "Family Album" is Ecuadorian author Gabriela Alemán’s rollicking follow-up to her acclaimed English-language debut, "Poso Wells." This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "Family Album: Stories" directly from City Lights at a 30% discount here: https://citylights.com/family-album-stories/ Gabriela Alemán was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She received a PhD at Tulane University and holds a Master’s degree in Latin American Literature from Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar. She currently resides in Quito, Ecuador. Her literary honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2006; member of Bogotá 39, a 2007 selection of the most important up-and-coming writers in Latin America in the post-Boom generation; one of five finalists for the 2015 Premio Hispanoamericano de Cuento Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia) for her short story collection "La muerte silba un blues;" and winner of several prizes for critical essays on literature and film. Her novel "Poso Wells" was published in English translation by City Lights in 2018. Oscar Villalon is the managing editor at the literary journal ZYZZYVA. His writing has appeared in Freeman’s, the Virginia Quarterly Review, The Believer, Stranger’s Guide, Literary Hub, and other publications, and in the anthology There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love: Letters from a Crisis (Vintage). A former board member of the National Book Critics Circle, and a former book editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, he lives in San Francisco. Dick Cluster is a writer and translator based in Oakland, California. His original work includes three novels and two books of history, most recently "The History of Havana" (with Rafael Hernández). Other Cuban writers he has translated include Aida Bahr, Pedro de Jesús, and Abel Prieto. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

Mosab Abu Toha in Conversation with Mary Karr May 13, 2022

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City Lights in conjunction with the Middle Eastern Children’s Alliance and The Markaz Review present Mosab Abu Toha in conversation with Mary Karr, celebrating the publication of "Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza," published by City Lights Books. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "Things You May Find in My Ear" directly from City Lights at a 30% discount here: https://citylights.com/general-poetry/things-you-may-find-hidden-in-my-ear/ Mosab Abu Toha is a Palestinian poet, scholar, and librarian who was born in Gaza and has spent his life there. A graduate in English language teaching and literature, he taught English at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) schools in Gaza from 2016 until 2019, and is the founder of the Edward Said Library, Gaza’s first English-language library. In 2019-2020, Abu Toha was a Visiting Poet in the Department of Comparative Literature at Harvard University; a Visiting Librarian at Harvard’s Houghton Library; and a Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative Fellow in the Harvard Divinity School. In 2020, Abu Toha gave talks and readings at the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, and the University of Arizona. He also spoke at the American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter Meeting held in Philadelphia in January 2020. In October 2021, University of Notre Dame’s Literatures, Annihilation, Exile, and Resistance lecture series hosted Abu Toha to speak about his poetry and work in Gaza. Abu Toha is a columnist for Arrowsmith Press, and his writings from Gaza have appeared in The Nation, Arrowsmith Press, and Literary Hub. His poems have been published on the Poetry Foundation’s website, in Poetry Magazine, Banipal, Solstice, The Markaz Review, The New Arab, Peripheries, and other journals. Mary Karr is an award-winning poet and best-selling memoirist. She is the author of the critically-acclaimed and New York Times best-selling memoirs "The Liars’ Club," "Cherry," and "Lit," as well as "The Art of Memoir," and five poetry collections, most recently "Tropic of Squalor." Karr is also a songwriter, having collaborated with Rodney Crowell, Norah Jones, Lucinda Williams and others on a country album called KIN. The Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) works to protect the rights and improve the lives of children in the Middle East through aid, empowerment and education. In the Middle East, MECA provides humanitarian aid, partners with community organizations to run projects for children, and supports income-generation projects. In the US and internationally, MECA raises awareness about the lives of children in the region and encourages meaningful action. Since 1988, MECA has delivered $29 million in aid to Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon. The Markaz Review is a literary arts publication and cultural institution that curates content and programs on the greater Middle East and our communities in diaspora. The Markaz signifies “the center” in Arabic, as well as Persian, Turkish, Hebrew and Urdu. Visit https://themarkaz.org/ This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

D. S. Marriott in Conversation with Frank B. Wilderson III May 06, 2022

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D. S. Marriott in conversation with Frank B. Wilderson III, celebrating the publication of D. S. Marriott’s "Before Whiteness: City Lights Spotlight No. 21," published by City Lights Books. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and was hosted by Peter Maravelis with an opening statement by Garrett Caples. You can purchase "Before Whiteness: City Lights Spotlight No. 21" directly from City Lights at a 30% discount here: https://citylights.com/general-poetry/before-whiteness/ Poet and scholar D.S. Marriott was born in Nottingham and educated at the University of Sussex, UK. He is the author of the poetry collections "Incognegro"(Salt, 2006), "Hoodoo Voodoo" (Shearsman, 2008), "The Bloods" (Shearsman, 2011), and "Duppies" (Commune Editions, 2019). His chapbooks include "In Neuter" (Equipage, 2012) and "Lative" (Equipage, 1992). His work is sometimes associated with the Cambridge school of poetry. In his critical and creative work, Marriott, of Jamaican heritage, draws on postcolonial thought and thinkers such as Frantz Fanon and is a leading theorist of Afro-pessimism. His critical books include "On Black Men" (Edinburgh University Press and Columbia University Press, 2000), "Haunted Life" (Rutgers University Press, 2007), and "Whither Fanon? Studies in the Blackness of Being" (Stanford University Press, 2018). He has taught at many universities and is currently based in Oakland, CA. Frank B. Wilderson III is a writer, dramatist, filmmaker and critic. He is a full professor of drama and African American studies at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of "Red, White & Black: Cinema and the Structure of US Antagonisms" (Duke University Press, 2010), "Incognegro: A Memoir of Exile & Apartheid" (South End Press, 2008), "Gramsci’s black marx: Whither the slave in civil society?" (Social Identities 9.2 , 2003) and "Afropessimism" (Liveright, 2020). He has received numerous honors for his work including The Eisner Prize for Creative Achievement of the Highest Order, The Maya Angelou Award for Best Fiction Portraying the Black Experience in America, an American book Award, amongst others. Wilderson has been described as one of the first writers in the tradition of Afro-pessimism. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

Still Outside: Jack Kerouac at 100 Apr 15, 2022

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An appreciation of Jack Kerouac’s unique contribution to American literature with talks by Ann Charters, Jean-Christophe Cloutier, Ann Douglas, Tim Hunt, Joyce Johnson, Hassan Melehy, and Regina Weinreich, with readings by Tony Torn, and a birthday greeting by David Amram. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis. On Thursday, March 10, 2022, City Lights, at the birthplace of the San Francisco Renaissance and the Beat movement, celebrated Jack Kerouac’s centenary, with an illuminating exploration of his writing. Moving beyond the hype and fetishization of his personality, some of the country's leading Kerouac scholars take a deep dive into his work. Learn about books you haven’t yet read, his innovations in prose, the influence of his Franco-American background and how he discovered his unique voice. City Light features one of the largest selection of Jack Kerouac books in the world. Check out our stock at this link: https://citylights.com/author/jack-kerouac/ This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation/

Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: The Bridge of Lost Desire - A Conversation with Samuel R. Delany Mar 25, 2022

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Daniel Shank Cruz in conversation with Samuel R. Delany, celebrating the U.S. launch of the publication of "Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950 to 1985," edited by Andrew Nette & Iain McIntyre, published by PM Press. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis. This session was part of a weekend-long symposium exploring the radical currents of Science Fiction. It was presented by City Lights in conjunction with PM Press. You can purchase copies of "Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950 to 1985" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/sci-fi-fantasy/dangerous-visions-new-worlds-radical/ Born into a distinguished Harlem family, Samuel R. Delany was a success at nineteen, changing the tone, the content, and the very shape of modern science fiction with his acclaimed novels and stories that bridged the apparent gap between science and fantasy to explore gay sexuality, racial and class consciousness, and the limits of imagination and memory. His vast body of work includes memoir, comics, space adventure, mainstream novels, homosexual erotica, and literary criticism of a high order. He has received numerous honors for his work including numerous Nebula and Hugo Awards, the J. Lloyd Eaton Lifetime Achievement Award in Science Fiction, the Kessler Award, and the Anisfield-Wolf Lifetime Achievement Award amongst others. His fiction includes Babel-17, The Einstein Intersection (winners of the Nebula Award for 1966 and 1967 respectively), Nova, Dhalgren, the Return to Nevèrÿon series, and Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders. Until his recent retirement he was a professor of English and creative writing at Temple University. Daniel Shank Cruz is an author and educator. Cruz is the author of "Queering Mennonite Literature: Archives, Activism, and the Search for Community" (Penn State University Press, 2019. Their research has merged queer theory with Mennonite studies producing illuminating and original work that explores the intersection of critical theory with gender studies and religion. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation/

Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Mike Stax in Conversation with Michael Moorcock Mar 11, 2022

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Mike Stax in conversation with Michael Moorcock, celebrating the US launch of the publication of "Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950 to 1985," edited by Andrew Nette & Iain McIntyre, published by PM Press. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis. This session was part of a weekend-long symposium exploring the radical currents of Science Fiction, presented by City Lights in conjunction with PM Press. You can purchase copies of "Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950 to 1985" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/sci-fi-fantasy/dangerous-visions-new-worlds-radical/ Michael Moorcock is a writer, best-known for his work in science fiction and fantasy. He is considered one of the leading voices of the genre. He has also published a number of well-received literary novels as well as comic thrillers, graphic novels and non-fiction. He has worked as an editor and is also a successful musician. He is best known for his novels about the character Elric of Melniboné, a seminal influence on the field of fantasy since the 1960s and '70s. As editor of the British science fiction magazine New Worlds, from May 1964 until March 1971 and then again from 1976 to 1996, Moorcock fostered the development of the science fiction "New Wave" in the UK and indirectly in the United States, leading to the advent of cyberpunk. His publication of "Bug Jack Barron" (1969) by Norman Spinrad as a serial novel was notorious; in British Parliament, some British MPs condemned the Arts Council for funding the magazine. Mr. Moorcock is also a recording musician, contributing to the bands Hawkwind, Blue Öyster Cult, Robert Calvert, Spirits Burning, and his own project, Michael Moorcock & The Deep Fix. In 2008, The Times named Mr. Moorcock in its list of "The 50 greatest British Writers". Mike Stax is a writer, editor, publisher, record producer, and musician. He is the founder and editor of Ugly Things Magazine, and frontman of the musical group The Loons. His work with Ugly Things has been instrumental in the preservation of late 20th century garage, psychedelic, punk, and alternative rock music history. He is currently working as co-writer (with Rick Brown) on a feature film about the seminal 60's psychedelic rock group The Misunderstood. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation/

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