Pulitzer winners among writers at reading series

Racism. Displacement. Trans-Atlantic crossings. Relationships forged - and undone - by war and politics.

These are shared threads among the works of 11 acclaimed writers, appearing in Houston as part of the Margarett Root Brown Reading Series.

Inprint, the city's leading literary nonprofit, hosts the series, which launches its 33rd season Aug. 26. It's a global guest list, with authors from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, Peru, the United States and elsewhere. Most have lived on more than one continent.

"So few places are homogeneous anymore," notes Marilyn Jones, Inprint's associate director. "This is what the world looks like, and this is the world writers want to talk about."

The authors will sit for candid, onstage interviews after their readings, which gives the audience a chance to see what they're really like. (Funny? Dour? Guarded? Shy?) And perhaps most incredibly, the price for individual tickets - $5 - hasn't changed since 1980.

Among the big names this year is Khaled Hosseini, appearing Sept. 23. Best known for "The Kite Runner," Hosseini will read from his third novel, "And the Mountains Echoed," now ranked No. 3 on the New York Times best-seller list. It's a sprawling, poignant story - Hosseini's books make everyone cry - that follows a young Afghan boy separated from his sister.

Two more heavy hitters: Pulitzer Prize winners Jhumpa Lahiri on Oct. 13 and Elizabeth Strout, Feb. 24.

Lahiri won the Pulitzer in 2000 for her debut story collection, "Interpreter of Maladies." Her first novel, "The Namesake," was made into a film. In Houston, she'll read from "The Lowland," her forthcoming novel about two Indian brothers.

"Olive Kitteridge," a novel in 13 stories, earned Strout her Pulitzer in 2009. She followed that with "The Burgess Boys" this spring, a book about coming home. Brothers Jim and Bob Burgess are called back to Maine by their sister, whose son is involved in a racially charged incident.

As in seasons past, there are "weird lovely echoes" between some of the featured books, says Rich Levy, Inprint's executive director.

Both "The Good Lord Bird" by James McBride (appearing Aug. 26) and "TransAtlantic" by Colum McCann (Nov. 18) feature 19th-century abolitionist and social reformer Frederick Douglass.

McBride's satire follows a young boy who joins John Brown's crusade against slavery. To stay alive the boy must pass - as a girl.

McCann's novel features three distinct story arcs, one of which follows Douglass on his 1845 tour of Britain.

For McCann, an Irish writer who won the National Book Award for "Let the Great World Spin," appearing in Texas is a bit of a homecoming. Decades ago, he taught wilderness survival in Brenham and finished his B.A. in English and history at the University of Texas at Austin.

Race also plays a major role in "Americanah," by Chimamanda Adichie, a Nigerian-born writer who now divides her time between the U.S. and Africa. "Americanah" depicts Nigerian lovers - a woman who has made a life for herself in the U.S. and a man who has become wealthy in a democratic Nigeria - who must decide if and how they'll be together.

"Her narrator talks about race through the eyes of an African living in the U.S.," Levy explains.

Adichie appears in Houston with McCann on Nov. 18.

Local authors are part of Inprint's lineup each year. On Aug. 26, novelist and University of Houston professor Robert Boswell will read from "Tumbledown," his new novel about a therapist and some patients in his program. A tantalizing passage from page 2 speaks to the title: "On this particular day - the day James Candler would come unhinged - he was up earlier than usual, his morning beginning with the smell of brownies in the oven, a dripping spatula in his mouth, and an uncertain feeling in his gut that he was about to do something devastatingly stupid."

George Saunders, master of the short story, will appear Jan. 27. Saunders writes howlingly odd, funny satire with occasional tender spots. He earned national acclaim and a place on best-seller lists for his latest collection, "Tenth of December," thanks in part to a well-timed profile in the New York Times Magazine. Saunders has long been admired in literary circles and long ignored outside them.

On March 24, Inprint welcomes Peruvian-born Daniel Alarcón, who'll read from his forthcoming novel, "At Night We Walk in Circles," and Pakistan-born Mohsin Hamid, who'll read from "How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia."

Alarcón is also a journalist and translator who co-founded Radio Ambulante, a storytelling podcast in Spanish. His new novel circles a man cast in the lead role of a play written by the leader of a famous guerrilla theater troupe.

Hamid has lived in Lahore, London, New York and California. His novel, "The Reluctant Fundamentalist," was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize and made into a film directed by Mira Nair. His new book, a fictional story presented as a manual, offers 12 steps to achieve fantastic wealth in Asia.

The final author of the season is poet Anne Carson, who'll read April 28 from her recent collection, "red doc>."

According to Levy, Carson breaks all the rules. Trained as a classicist, she doesn't write traditional narrative poetry. Instead, "she takes classical references and brings them into contemporary times," he says.

"G" is the main character of "red doc>," short for Geryon, a mythical creature. Here is Carson describing the landscape "G" sees:

CROWS AS BIG as barns/ rave overhead. Still/ driving north. Night is a/ slit all day is white./ Panels of torn planet loom/ and line up one behind the/ other to the far edge of/ what eyes can see.