May 27, 7PM, NYC: Discussion on reportage with authors Wojciech Tochman (Poland), Francisco Goldman (US), and Jonathan Brent (US)

W. Martin wmartin at polishculture-nyc.org
Mon May 18 18:54:00 UTC 2009 

Dear SEELANGers,

Here’s some information about an event the Polish Cultural Institute is
hosting next week in New York. If you can make it, please come. If you can’t
but know of anyone who might be interested, please forward. 

Best wishes,

Bill Martin

 

PS – Here is an article about the bookstore where the event will take place
(which is devoted to international literature as well as travel books):
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/destinations/2009-05-18-new-york-idlewild-boo
ks_N.htm

 

 

 

 

Polish Cultural Institute
Press contact: Bill Martin

350 Fifth Avenue, #4621
Tel.212-239-7300, ext. 3005

New York, NY 10118
Email: wmartin at PolishCulture-NYC.org

www.PolishCulture-NYC.org <http://www.polishculture-nyc.org/> 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Polish Cultural Institute in New York
and The Polish Book Institute (Krakow, Poland)
present

LITERARY REPORTAGE: THE FORENSICS OF CRISIS

An International Conversation 
with

Wojciech Tochman, Francisco Goldman, and Jonathan Brent

moderated by Marcela Valdes

Wednesday, May 27, 7 pm

Idlewild Books

New York, May 18, 2009 — The Polish Cultural Institute in New York and The
Polish Book Institute (Krakow, Poland) present an international
conversation, Literary Reportage: The Forensics of Crisis, at Idlewild Books
on Wednesday, May 27, 2009, at 7 PM. The event will feature three authors of
recently published books: Polish journalist Wojciech Tochman, author of Like
Eating a Stone: Surviving the Past in Bosnia (Atlas & Co., 2008),
Guatemalan-American novelist and journalist Francisco Goldman, author of The
Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop? (Grove/Atlantic, 2007), and
Yale University Press Editorial Director Jonathan Brent, author of Inside
the Stalin Archives: Discovering the New Russia (Atlas & Co., 2008). The
discussion will be moderated by Washington Examiner Books Editor Marcela
Valdes. It will be followed by a wine and cheese reception. Admission is
free. After the discussion, authors will sign their books, which will be
available for purchase. 

This event is organized in conjunction with The Polish Book Institute’s
exhibition at Book Expo America (Javits Center, Booth #2423). Wojciech
Tochman will sign copies of his book Like Eating a Stone: Surviving the Past
in Bosnia at the Polish Book Institute booth on Saturday, May 29, 3-3:30 PM.
The book signing is open only to attendees of Book Expo America. 

LISTINGS: 

WHAT:             Literary Reportage: The Forensics of Crisis

An International Conversation with Wojciech Tochman, Francisco Goldman, and
Jonathan Brent, moderated by Marcela Valdes

WHEN:            Wednesday, May 27, 2009, 7 PM

WHERE:          Idlewild Books. 12 W. 19th St., New York, NY. 10011. Train:
23rd St: F,V,R,W,6; 18th St: #1; Four blocks from Union Square.

ADMISSION:     Free and open to the public

More information: http://www.polishculture-nyc.org/?eventId=1535

* * *

The status of reportage as a field of literature in the English-language
world continues to be debated, and often simply dismissed, even as other
genres of creative nonfiction—the essay, the memoir—rise in critical and
commercial estimation. Just as novelists regularly rely on research of
present-day circumstances and past events for their fictions, writers of
reportage have always made use of literary techniques to structure and
convey information about the real world. In many other cultures, this
artistic condition of reportage is unquestioned; and in their home
countries, reporters like Ryszard Kapuscinski are celebrated as literary
masters, while other writers like Gabriel Garcia Marquez move easily between
novels and journalism. 

Literary Reportage: The Forensics of Crisis: brings together three authors
who have come to the field of reportage from very different backgrounds. In
his book Inside the Stalin Archives: Discovering the New Russia, Jonathan
Brent, Editor-in-Chief of Yale University Press and founder of Yale’s Annals
of Communism series, relates a tale of his own encounters with bureaucracy
and everyday life in post-Soviet Russia that is as grim as it is gripping.
Four-time novelist Francisco Goldman expanded a 1999 New Yorker article
about the murder of Guatemalan bishop Juan Gerardi into a widely acclaimed
classic of investigative journalism, The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed
the Bishop?, which had direct impact on the most recent Guatemalan
elections. In his devastating reportage Like Eating a Stone: Surviving the
Past in Bosnia, Warsaw-based journalist Wojciech Tochman follows both Polish
forensic scientist Ewa Klonowska as she exhumes mass graves in Bosnia, and
the families of the victims as they wait for their loved ones to be
identified. Moderator Marcela Valdes is a Contributing Editor to Publishers
Weekly, Books Editor of The Washington Examiner, a former NBCC Board Member,
and a recent recipient of a 2010 Nieman Foundation Fellowship at Harvard
University. 

Coming together on the eve of this year’s Book Expo America, the three
authors will discuss their own approaches, experiences, and motivations as
writers, what it means to write at the intersection of literature and
political, social, and historical crisis, and what significance reportage
can have for readers and communities. 

* * *

Jonathan Brent is Editorial Director of Yale University Press, where he
founded the “Annals of Communism” series. He is the author of Inside the
Stalin Archives: Discovering the New Russia (Atlas & Co., 2008), co-author
of Stalin’s Last Crime, and frequent contributor to the New Criterion, the
Observer, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. “A fascinating, subtle, and
finely written quest into the Russia of today through the dark labyrinth of
history. Brent unveils not only the secrets of his journeys into Soviet
Archives, but also a unique yet personal portrait of an enigmatic country
and a blood-soaked century.” — Simon Sebag Montefiore.

Francisco Goldman is a novelist and journalist, a ‘Maestro’ at the Fundacion
Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano (the journalism school in Mexico City
founded by Gabriel Garcia Marquez), and author of The Long Night of White
Chickens (1992), The Ordinary Seamen (1997), The Divine Husband (2004), and
The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop? (2007), which won the
Index on Censorship’s TR FYVEL Freedom of Expression Award, and was cited as
best book of the year by numerous newspapers. “This magisterial book is a
marvelous chimera of reportage, history, and autobiography, but also a
riveting whodunit, all rendered with Goldman’s trademark intelligence,
compassion, and verve.” — Junot Díaz.

Wojciech Tochman, born in 1969 in Krakow, Poland, is the author of four
books of reportage, including Like Eating a Stone: Surviving the Past in
Bosnia, trans. Antonia Lloyd-Jones (Atlas & Co., 2008). A Gazeta Wyborcza
reporter, he has written on individual experiences of terrorism in Bali and
New York, human trafficking in Mexico, and bipolar disorder in Poland, among
other traumas. With Like Eating a Stone, Tochman became a finalist for the
Nike Polish Literary Prize and for the Prix Témoin du Monde, awarded by
Radio France International. He lives in Warsaw. “This is reportage of the
highest order — reportage that employs the specific to tell a universal
truth. [A] profound meditation on the horrors of war, [Tochman’s] work is
all the more powerful for leaving the answers to terrible questions
hanging.” — Financial Times. 

Marcela Valdes is a contributing editor at Publishers Weekly, Books Editor
for the Washington Examiner, and a former Board Member of the National Book
Critics Circle. Her articles and reviews have been published in The Nation,
Bookforum, the Washington Post, and the Virginia Quarterly Review, among
other periodicals. She recently received a 2010 Nieman Fellowship for
Journalism at Harvard University.

 

* * *

The Polish Cultural Institute, established in New York in 2000, is a
diplomatic mission dedicated to nurturing and promoting cultural ties
between the United States and Poland, both through American exposure to
Poland's cultural achievements, and through exposure of Polish artists and
scholars to American trends, institutions, and professional counterparts.
http://www.PolishCulture-NYC.org <http://www.polishculture-nyc.org/> 

The Polish Book Institute was established in 2004 as a wing of the Ministry
of Culture and is Poland’s chief literacy organization, promoting Polish
literature both at home and abroad. It organizes literary and educational
programs and events, subsidizes translations of Polish literature, and
serves as a clearing house for information on Polish books and publishing
market. http://www.bookinstitute.pl <http://www.bookinstitute.pl/> 

Idlewild Books was founded in Spring 2008 by David Del Vecchio, a former
United Nations press officer. Committed to bringing together people who care
passionately about travel, world literature, and international affairs, the
bookstore carries guidebooks to over 100 countries as well as international
fiction and nonfiction. http://www.idlewildbooks.com
<http://www.idlewildbooks.com/> 

 

###

 


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