An Evening with Ananda Lima

An Evening with Fiction Writer Ananda Lima

The Visiting Writers' Series and English Department is pleased to present an evening with fiction writer Ananda Lima, author of the linked short story collection Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil. Lima will read from her collection. A Q&A and book signing will follow. Light snacks provided. Books will be available for purchase at the event.
 
Ananda Lima is the author of Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil and Mother/land, winner of the Hudson Prize. Her work has appeared in The American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Lit Hub, Poets.org, and elsewhere. She is a Contributing Editor at Poets & Writers and Program Curator at StoryStudio, Chicago, and has served as a mentor at the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Immigrant Artist Program.
 
 
About Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil
At a Halloween party in 1999, a writer slept with the devil. She sees him again and again throughout her life and she writes stories for him about things that are both impossible and true...
 
Lima lures readers into surreal pockets of the United States and Brazil where they’ll find bite-size Americans in vending machines and the ghosts of people who are not dead. Once there, she speaks to modern Brazilian-American immigrant experiences—of ambition, fear, longing, and belonging—and reveals the porousness of storytelling and of the places we call home. With humor, an exquisite imagination, and a voice praised as “singular and wise and fresh” (Cathy Park Hong), Lima joins the literary lineage of Bulgakov and Lispector and the company of writers today like Ted Chiang, Carmen Maria Machado, and Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. Craft is recommended reading by Chicago Review of Books, Electric Literature, The Kenyon Review, and more!
 
Here's what critics have to say:

• “One of the most original and unforgettable reads of the year.” –Library Journal, starred review
• “Will delight readers crushed under the weight of the contemporary world.” –Kirkus Review, starred review
• “A remarkable debut that announces the arrival of a towering talent in speculative fiction.”–The New York Times
• “A terrific fiction debut. Lima’s prose is lush. The stories, and the stories within those stories, connect to some of the cruelest portions of the human experience with uncommon warmth and wit. Fans of Gabino Iglesias and Carmen Maria Machado will want to snap this up.”–Publishers Weekly, starred review

Previous Visiting Writers

Camille Dungy
Sandra Simonds
Melissa Ginsburg
Ashley C. Ford
Susan Furber
Diane Seuss
Paisley Rekdal
Philip Matthews
Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Roxane Gay
Melissa Range
Hasanthika Sirisena
Laurie Ann Cedilnik
Elizabeth Stuckey-French
Ned Stuckey-French
Karen Lee Boren
Alison Stine
Austin Seagrest
Kelcey Ervick
Kate Sweeney
Mary Pinard
Maggie Mitchell
Rebecca Lehmann
Sister Eva Hooker
Erika Meitner
Chad Davidson
Emily Schulten
Vanessa Mártir
Michael Nye
Sarah Anne Strickley
Dionne Irving Bremyer