Paragraph Reading Series: Peter Godwin + Anne Landsman November 9, 2007

Paragraph is honored to host a reading with two hugely talented writers, Peter Godwin and Anne Landsman, at Clay. The reading will be followed by a wine and cheese reception at Paragraph. Free and open to the public.

Peter Godwin's latest book, When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa came out to rave reviews. The New Yorker calls it, "a powerful narrative of grief and desperation, both personal and national." Publishers Weekly describes Godwin's work as, "a tour de force of personal journalism." Godwin is the author of five other critically acclaimed nonfiction books including, Rhodesians Never Die: The Impact of War and Political Change on White Rhodesia, Wild at Heart: Man and Beast in Southern Africa, and The Three of Us: A New Life in New York which received the George Orwell Prize as well as the Esquire/Apple/Waterstones Award. As an award-winning foreign correspondent, he has reported from more than 65 countries and served as an Eastern European and diplomatic correspondent for The Sunday Times of London. He was the chief correspondent for BBC's Assignment and is also a documentary filmmaker and screenwriter. His documentary on the sex trade in Thailand, The Industry of Death, won the gold medal for investigative film at the New York Film Festival.

Anne Landsman's critically acclaimed debut novel, The Devil's Chimney, was nominated for the Pen/Hemingway Award, the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, QPB's New Voices Award and South Africa's M-Net Book Prize. The New Yorker compares her prose to Alice Munro and her vision to J. M. Coetzee, saying, "Landsman's hold on the crux of her story is so steady and strong that her fey, haunted characters seem to act entirely out of their own compulsions." Publishers Weekly says her book evokes, "rigidly observed sociological hierarchies...with cinematographic clarity and poetic grace." Her just to be released book, The Rowing Lesson, has caught the attention of Oprah and authors such as Jennifer Egan who claims "Landsman is one of the few writers of our generation to have wrested from the English language a voice uniquely and searingly her own." Landsman has published interviews, reviews, essays, and stories in The Believer, The American Poetry Review, Bomb, Poets & Writers, and The Washington Post. She has also written screenplays including the motion picture adaptation of The Devil's Chimney and Honest Arrogance, a film about the life of Frank Lloyd Wright. Originally from South Africa, she lives in New York City with her husband and two children.

Date: Friday, November 9th, 2007 at 8:00 PM
Location: Clay, 25 West 14th Street
Reception after the reading: Paragraph, 35 West 14th Street

Official Website: http://www.paragraphny.com