For the first of PEN World Voices’ three curated readings in a dinner setting, gather at the New York epicenter of Nordic culture, the beloved Scandinavia House, to inaugurate this reading-dinner pairing. Travel to Nordic heaven – right in the heart of Manhattan – and break bread with audience and artists alike, including Tomas Bannerhed, A.M. Homes, Steinunn Sigurdardottir, and Bob Holman.

Presented in association with Scandinavia House, and co- sponsored by The Copenhagen, with support from the Consulate General of Denmark, New York, the Consulate General of Finland in New York, the Consulate General of Iceland in New York, the Royal Norwegian Consulate General in New York, the Consulate General of Sweden in New York, The Danish Arts Foundation, Finnish Literature Exchange, Icelandic Literature Center, the Nordic Culture Fund, NORLA – Norwegian Literature Abroad: Fiction & Non-Fiction, and the Swedish Arts Council.

About the participants

“Tomas Bannerhed, born in 1966, grew up in Uråsa village in the province of Småland in southern Sweden, and now lives in Stockholm. His professional background includes being a university teacher and a magazine editor. In 2011 his debut novel The Ravens/Korparna was awarded the prestigious Swedish August Prize (Book of the Year) and has since received several other prizes. Foreign rights have been sold to seven countries, including the U.K., France, and Germany. The U.K. edition will be published by Clerkenwell Press in spring 2014.

Born in Reykjavík, Steinunn Sigurðardóttir made a name for herself at the age of nineteen with a volume of poetry entitled Continuances/Sifellur (1969). Sigurðardóttir has since become one of Iceland’s most frequently translated writers, and one of its most lauded, having won the Icelandic Literature Prize for Place of the Heart/Hjartastaður (1995) and the national Bookseller’s Prize in 2011, among others. Sigurðardóttir’s extensive body of work includes eleven novels, seven volumes of poetry, two volumes of short stories, radio plays, television plays, and a children’s book; Place of the Heart is her English-language debut.

A.M. Homes is the author of the novels May We Be Forgiven (2012), This Book Will Save Your Life (2006), Music For Torching (1999), The End of Alice (1996), In a Country of Mothers (1993), and Jack (1989). She also penned the short-story collections Things You Should Know (2002) and The Safety of Objects (1990), the best-selling memoir The Mistress’s Daughter (2007), the travel memoir Los Angeles: People, Places and the Castle on the Hill (2002), and the artist’s book Appendix A (1996).

Bob Holman is best known as an impresario of new poetry: slams, hip-hop, and performance, but he has also written eight books. Most recently he collaborated with Chuck Close on A Couple of Ways of Doing Something. Holman is the Proprietor of the Bowery Poetry Club and teaches at New York University and Columbia University. He is currently working on On the Griot Trail, a documentary about the poetry of endangered languages that includes footage from a recent two-month shoot in West Africa; and another documentary about Allen Ginsberg’s experiences in India.”

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TUE – 4-29-14 – 7:00 PM
free