“As we look to literature to make sense of the world, there has been a wealth of powerful, important books to help us come to terms with, or at least to better understand these times. Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures is proud to present these ten authors and their significant, topical work.” – Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures Executive Director Stephanie Flom
Nancy Isenberg / Monday, September 25, 2017
Historian Nancy Isenberg’s critically acclaimed and bestselling White Trash has been called a “groundbreaking and landmark book” upending the comforting myths about America as the land of equal opportunity and social mobility.
Sherman Alexie / Monday, October 16, 2017
National Book Award-winning author Sherman Alexie celebrates the 10th anniversary of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and the publication of his searing, deeply moving family memoir You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me.
Ron Chernow / Monday, October 30, 2017
Pulitzer Prize-winner and biographer of Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, and John D. Rockefeller, Ron Chernow gives us a sweeping and dramatic portrait of one of our most compelling presidents, Ulysses S. Grant, in his new biography Grant.
Isabel Allende / Monday, November 13, 2017
Isabel Allende has been called one of the most important voices in contemporary Latin American literature. Best known for The House of the Spirits, she once again interweaves imaginative stories with important historical events in her new novel In the Midst of Winter.
Richard Russo / Monday, November 20, 2017
The winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Empire Falls, Richard Russo, follows his bestselling Everybody’s Fool with Trajectory, a collection of short fiction that masterfully employs details and dialogue in perfectly calibrated narration.
Jennifer Egan / Monday, December 4, 2017
Jennifer Egan is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Visit From the Goon Squad. Her new book Manhattan Beach is a deeply researched historic novel set before and during World War II, a time of sweeping transformation and opportunity.
Paul Beatty / Monday, January 29, 2018
Paul Beatty’s Man Booker Prize-winning novel The Sellout is a biting satire about a young man’s isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court. “An explosion of comic daring, cultural provocation, and genuine heart.”
Susan Faludi / Monday, February 26, 2018
In the Darkroom is the investigation by Pulitzer Prize-winning feminist journalist Susan Faludi into her transgender father’s lifetime of identity transformations and the mysteries of identity—personal, political, cultural—transfixing our times.
Mohsin Hamid / Monday, March 26, 2018
Mohsin Hamid is the author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist and How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia. His latest novel Exit West is a visionary love story that imagines the forces that drive ordinary people from their homes into the uncertain embrace of new lands.
Viet Thanh Nguyen / Monday, April 9, 2018
Bold, elegant, and fiercely honest, Nguyen’s debut novel, The Sympathizer, won the Pulitzer Prize in 2016. His story collection, The Refugees, gives voice to lives led between two worlds, the adopted homeland and the country of birth.
The 2017/18 Ten Evenings series is presented by Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures, made possible with the support of The Drue Heinz Trust, and presented in association with the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh. This is the 27th season of Pittsburgh’s literary lecture series. All programs will be presented on Monday evenings at 7:30 pm in Oakland’s historic Carnegie Music Hall.
Subscription renewals for the 2017/18 Ten Evenings are available May 1. New subscriptions are available June 1. Single tickets are available July 1. Ticket prices remain affordable; student tickets are available for $10 with student identification. More information is available by visiting www.pittsburghlectures.org or calling Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures, 412.622.8866.