Ananda Lima, author of Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil, in conversation with Elizabeth Gonzales James
When:
Wednesday, Jun 19, 2024 7:00p -
8:00p
Wednesday, Jun 19, 2024 7:00p -
8:00p
Where:
Porter Square Books
25 White St.
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02140
Admission:
FREE
Hosted by:
Categories:
Event website:
https://www.portersquarebooks.com/event/ananda-lima-author-craft-stories-i-wrote-devil-conversation-elizabeth-gonzales-james
Porter Square Books is thrilled to welcome Ananda Lima for the release of her debut novel Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil! Author Elizabeth Gonzalez James will join Lima in conversation. This event will take place on Wednesday, June 19 at 7pm at Porter Square Books (25 White St. Cambridge, MA 02140).
RSVP below to let us know you're coming and to receive event updates!
ABOUT CRAFT: STORIES I WROTE FOR THE DEVIL
Strange, intimate, haunted, and hungry—Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil is an intoxicating and surreal fiction debut by award-winning author Ananda Lima.
“An astounding new voice.” —ERIC LaROCCA • "I love it so much.” —KELLY LINK • “Trippy, eerie, wry, and always profound.” —JOHN KEENE • “Incredible. Truly wondrous.” —KEVIN WILSON • "Heart-wrenching and wickedly funny." —GWEN KIRBY • “Propulsive, uncanny, and expertly built.” —JULIA FINE
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: Stories I Wrote for the Devil includes: “Rapture,” “Ghost Story,” “Tropicália,” “Antropógaga,” “Idle Hands,” “Rent,” “Porcelain,” “Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory,” and “Hasselblad.”
A great next read for fans of Carmen Maria Machado's Her Body and Other Parties and V. E. Schwab's The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue.
Recommended reading by Chicago Review of Books, Electric Literature, The Kenyon Review, and more!
PRAISE FOR CRAFT: STORIES I WROTE FOR THE DEVIL
"My only problem with this book is the title, and that’s because I love it so much. Ananda Lima didn’t write these stories for the Devil, she wrote them for me! An absolutely thrilling reminder that short stories can be the best kind of magic, conjuring up not only the devil, but real emotion, real surprise, real strangeness.” —Kelly Link, author of The Book of Love
“Sophisticated and totally engrossing, Ananda Lima’s Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil is easily one of the most innovative works I’ve read in quite some time. Interlocked stories form a cohesive and unique vision in this haunting collection from an astounding new voice.” —Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke
"I was blown away by Ananda Lima's Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil. Propulsive, uncanny, and expertly built, Craft unearths truths about fiction writing, the contemporary immigrant experience, and what it means to live a life of art, all in the clean, marvelous prose of a decorated poet." —Julia Fine, author of What Should Be Wild
"Here is a collection of stories that not only delights in its ability to subvert the reader’s expectations but also leaves one haunted." —The Kenyon Review
"A perfect balance of humor, heart, and hauntedness.... I expect Craft to immediately put Lima in the company of writers like Carmen Maria Machado, Kelly Link, and Samanta Schweblin." —Chicago Review of Books (Most Anticipated)
"A series of surrealist, spooky, sexy tales that are completely unpredictable and utterly fascinating. Using a unique blend of horror and literary weirdness, Lima’s work discusses what it means to belong (or not) in another land, to search for home, and to discover who the devil might really be." —Reactor
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Ananda Lima is a poet, translator, and fiction writer born in Brasília, Brazil, now living in Chicago, IL. She's the author of the poetry collection Mother/land, winner of the Hudson Prize. Her work has appeared in The American Poetry Review, Poets.org, Kenyon Review Online, Gulf Coast, Witness, and elsewhere. She has been awarded the inaugural WIP Fellowship by Latinx-in-Publishing. She has an MA in Linguistics from UCLA and an MFA in Creative Writing in Fiction from Rutgers University, Newark. Craft: Stories I wrote for the Devil is her fiction debut.
Elizabeth Gonzalez James is the author of the novels Mona at Sea and The Bullet Swallower, as well as the chapbook, Five Conversations About Peter Sellers. Her stories and essays have appeared in The Idaho Review, Southern Humanities Review, The Rumpus, StorySouth, PANK, and elsewhere, and have received numerous Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations. Originally from South Texas, Elizabeth now lives with her family in Massachusetts.
Event date:
Wednesday, June 19, 2024 - 7:00pm
Event address:
Porter Square Books
25 White St.
Cambridge, MA 02140
RSVP Form:
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