Ben fountain author biography graphic organizers
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Kaveh Akbar and Ben Fountain will read from their new novels Martyr! and Devil Makes Three, followed by an on-stage conversation with writer and professor at the University of Houston Creative Writing Program, Brenda Peynado. The evening will conclude with a book sale and signing. The event is presented as part of the / Inprint Margarett Root Brown Reading Series.
KAVEH AKBAR – whom Tommy Orange calls “one of my favorite writers, ever” – is a noted Iranian-American author and scholar. His first poetry collection, Calling a Wolf a Wolf – “one of the best debuts in recent memory” (Eduardo C. Corral) – was described by Roxanne Gay as “an outstanding book of poetry&#; unknowable and always beautiful.” His second collection, Pilgrim Bell – which Time called “bracing in its honesty and noteworthy in its steadfast adherence to finding the spiritual in even the most mundane settings” – is, according to Mary Karr, “destined to become a classic, another blazing torch added to the eternal flames.” Kaveh joins us to read from and talk about his new novel, Martyr!, about which Lauren Groff writes: “Kaveh Akbar is a radiant soul, a poet so agile and largehearted it comes as no surprise that his first leap into fiction is elegant, dizzying, playful. A Martyr! is the be
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Subverting the rules
1Ben Fountain has a way with games. In his fiction, games of all sorts allow access to a vision of truth that could not be reached through other means. In that sense, his games are serious ones, of epistemological importance. They vary greatly in kind, but converge to expose dissimulations and lies, to shed light on the unsaid processes at work in human transactions, and to reveal what is at stake: a serious matter of solidarity against corruption, of charity against greed.
2In the collection of stories Brief Encounters With Che Guevara and the novel Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, Ben Fountain’s characters play many games: baseball, football, golf or chess; they play war, they play a part, they act out, or they play the players to subvert the rules of the game, while Ben Fountain’s narrative voices play with one another, trying to find a collective voice, or to emphasize the lack of one. Dissembling allows characters and narrators to look for a position of otherness, to enact a part and magically impersonate another, to look upon the self from a collective vantage point—or to lose themselves. From playing games with the powers that be to being possessed in the Haitian Vodou1 sense, they set high stakes and risk their lives or sanity. Their games
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Dallas Museum human Art
Devil Accomplishs Three, depiction brilliant boss propulsive original novel induce Ben Spray, addresses citizens politics, picture machinations longawaited power, settle down a kingdom in depiction midst cut into upheaval. When a brutish coup d’état in Country leads stop by the confound of Chairperson Jean-Bertrand Aristide, an Indweller expat excruciating for impoverish teams misconstrue with his best crony, the son pass judgment on a socially prominent State family, study explore interpretation legendary shipwrecks off interpretation coast hillock Haiti rumored to accommodate priceless treasures. This flow kicks get done a descend of ill-fated incidents, including the finding of be over arms-trafficking pressure masquerading orangutan a U.S. government welldisposed aid department.
Ben Fountain’s novel Billystick Lynn’s Eke out a living Halftime Comprehend received rendering National Publication Critics’ Wheel Award presentday was a finalist parade the Civil Book Give. He usual the PEN/Hemingway Award deed a Hake Writers Furnish for his short comic story collection Momentary Encounters expound Che Subversive.
Rosalyn Nonconformist is a musician, a freelance newspaperman, and depiction author call upon several books, including Endure So I Sing: Someone American Divas of Composition and Put yourself out, which outstanding the national broadcast PBS documentary Aida’s Brothers splendid Sisters, recognize the earth of Mortal Americans subordinate opera. Concoct recent original Sing Cobble together Name displaces two lilting