Reading

Mohamedou Ould Slahi, Larry Siems, and Adriana Ramirez discuss creativity, resistance, the ongoing dark legacy of the prison camp in Guantánamo, and our never-finished, collective journey to freedom.

Author Colum McCann discusses forgiveness and understanding with Bassam Aramin and Rami Elhanan, as well as their lives since the release of Colum's "Apeirogon" and the current climate in Israel and Palestine.

Four City of Asylum and ICORN residents highlight their respective and collective journeys and resilience.

For over a decade, City of Asylum has hosted Cave Canem’s annual Faculty Reading each June, coinciding with their week-long retreat at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, Pennsylvania. This year’s reading presents esteemed faculty and world-class poets A. Van Jordan, Matthew Shenoda, and Joy Priest.

A writer without a country. A city with no off switch. A memory that keeps looping back at the worst possible time. Don't miss this discussion of Oleksandr Frazé-Frazénko's "Nothing Is Under Control."

From the award-winning author of 2007’s "The Slave Ship," we celebrate the book launch of Marcus Rediker’s latest work: "Freedom Ship: The Uncharted History of Escaping Slavery by Sea."

Teju Cole shares "Tremor," a startling work of realism and invention that engages brilliantly with literature, music, race, and history as it examines the passage of time and how we mark it.

This reading concludes Nabila’s two-week residency cohosted by City of Asylum and CAAPP. In this program, Nabila will share the newly composed work that came out of her residency, as well as insights into her writing process and her residency experience.

In a combination reading and inside scoop full of insights into his process, Damon gets personal with City of Asylum audiences to discuss the very subject that drove his hilarious and unique anthology of Black voices: humor.

This reading features nine of the poets from the Keystone Poetry anthology’s “The Allegheny Highlands” and “Three Rivers and Old Mills” sections sharing their poems about Pennsylvania, for Pennsylvanians.

Writer-in-Residence Mukhtar Shehata shares newly written work and reflects on his time in Pittsburgh.

A life laid bare, a wandering search for meaning, an immersive portal into history and its accompanying reverberations. All this and more can be found in Aatish Taseer’s "A Return to Self: Excursions in Exile."

This second installment of our On Topic series welcomes esteemed legal scholar Michelle Adams to explore class and race in a discussion of her new book, "The Containment: Detroit, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for Racial Justice in the North."

City of Asylum Writer-in-Residence Volodymyr Rafeyenko discusses three of his works with his translator Mark Andryczyk, exploring the process of translation and the relationship between writer and translator.

Author Nina Sharma shares her debut memoir, “The Way You Make Me Feel: Love in Black and Brown,” a hilarious and moving story of her interracial relationship, told in essays.

Praised as a “gripping…lush and suspenseful summer read” (Al Dìa) with echoes of the pop culture phenomenon The White Lotus (Crime Reads), "The Grand Paloma Resort" grabs readers and refuses to let go. 

Poet Yona Harvey and scholar Tahira J. Walker explore what it means to be a Black woman living in a city deemed most unlivable for them. The pair will discuss their respective works and the intersection of history, community, marginalization, and resistance. In conversation with Damon Young.

What are we missing when we limit the literary canon to American works? In this reading and discussion, City of Asylum Writers-in-Residence share the books and writers from their home countries—Algeria, Egypt, Haiti, and Ukraine—that made an impact on their respective literary scenes and that all US readers should add to their lists.

Poets Aaron El Sabrout, imogen xtian smith, and Julian Talamantez Brolaski take to the Alphabet Reading Garden for a poetic exploration of trans and nonbinary ecologies and understanding one’s own ecosystems.

Anne Carson, one of the most celebrated classicists of our times, will participate in staged readings from her works "Cassandra Float Can" (based on Aeschylus’s "Cassandra") and "Antigonick" (based on Sophokles’s "Antigone").

A dynamic discussion that will traverse hybrid and experimental poetic forms as well as the art, broadly speaking, of translation. Moderated by Michelle Gil-Montero.

Zhang Yueran’s translated novel "Women, Seated" has become an undeniable hit among American audiences. But what does it take to bring Chinese literature to the US? In conversation with Anderson Tepper, editor Han Zhang and translator Jeremy Tiang will discuss the translation process and the importance of translated literature in America.

2006 Booker Prize winner Kiran Desai returns to City of Asylum to share her triumphant, deeply romantic, newly Booker Prize–shortlisted novel, “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny,” in conversation with Anderson Tepper.

A reading and celebration of short fiction honoring 45 years of the Drue Heinz Prize, one of the most significant short fiction awards in the nation, with current and alumni prizewinners.

City of Asylum’s Writer-in-Residence series continues with an exciting preview of Algerian writer and activist Anouar Rahmani’s forthcoming new novel, "The End of the Third World"—a project seven years in the making.

In the World Literature premiere of our fall programming season, novelist Carlos Manuel Álvaraz will join moderator Anderson Tepper and translator Natasha Wimmer in a reading and discussion of his thrilling new novel depicting the disintegration that comes from being uprooted.

“The Atlantic” staff writer George Packer shares his new work of fiction, “The Emergency,” in conversation with writer, critic, and performance poet Adriana E. Ramírez.