On April 28th and 29th, Tommy Wieringa will speak at the Bay Area Book Festival in Berkeley, CA, during “Coming of Age on the Page” and “Creating Home: On Finding Yourself in Another Culture”
On April 28th and 29th, internationally acclaimed author Tommy Wieringa will speak at the Bay Area Book Festival in downtown Berkeley, CA. He will participate in the sessions “Coming of Age on the Page” and “Creating Home: On Finding Yourself in Another Culture”.
Based in famously progressive Berkeley, California, each year the Bay Area Book Festival brings together 50,000 people with 250 of the world’s most respected authors for a weekend packed with performances, interviews, and discussions on ten stages, all within a few minutes’ walk of each other. Festival-goers browse in a vibrant free outdoor fair of literary exhibitors, activities for all ages, and food vendors. There’s even a mini-film festival curated by the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) and by the co-director of the Telluride Film Festival. At only four years old, the Bay Area Book Festival is one of the nation’s top literary events.
Join Tommy Wieringa and Colin Winnette on Saturday, April 28th, for “Coming of Age on the Page” at the auditorium of the Veteran’s Memorial Building. Stories of self-discovery transcend time and place. Coming-of-age stories, the bildungsroman, are perennial and beloved throughout all nations’ literary traditions. These authors demonstrate the durability of the genre as they introduce their dazzling new novels: Tommy Wieringa’s “These Are the Names,” a multilayered story of a group of refugees and their interwoven destinies, and Colin Winnette’s “The Job of the Wasp,” a gothic story that proves adolescence can be a nightmare. Buy your tickets here.
Tommy Wieringa will make another appearance at “Creating Home: On Finding Yourself in Another Culture” on Sunday, April 29th, at the Brower Center – Tamalpais Room. “Home”—losing it, finding it, creating it—is one of the most fundamental themes in literature. Hernan Diaz, Rodrigo Hasbún and Tommy Wieringa explore the concept of home and foreignness, creating utterly captivating stories that subvert readers’ expectations. Hernan Diaz, associate director of the Hispanic Institute at Columbia University, sends a youthful Swedish immigrant on a cross-country American trek in his new novel, “In the Distance,” called “a potent depiction of loneliness, a memorable immigration narrative, and a canny reinvention of the old-school western.” In Rodrigo Hasbún’s, “Affections,” a former member of the Nazi propaganda machine flees to Bolivia to find a fresh start, only to discover revolution. Tommy Wieringa’s “These Are the Names,” is “part fable, part murder mystery,” telling the interwoven stories of a group of refugees and a good-hearted policeman—”this touching novel insistently affirms the values of civilization above tribalism and fear” (Wall Street Journal). Buy your tickets here.
Tommy Wieringa is an acclaimed Dutch writer whose books include “Everything About Tristan,” “Little Caesar,” “A Beautiful Young Woman,” and “Joe Speedboat,” which was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. “These Are the Names” won the 2013 Libris Prize. Wieringa lives in Amsterdam, where he writes for the Dutch NRC Handelsblad newspaper.