New American Stories presents diverse stories of contemporary American life and dreams lost and found, by four of the best young, contemporary writers – Jhumpa Lahiri, Sherman Alexie, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Aleksandar Hemon, as performed by terrific stage and screen actors. All four writers have a unique perspective on the American experience which is reflected in their work. Whether they are immigrants from another country, or in the case of Sherman Alexie, a Native American, they're all writing from a voice that comes from being an outsider. They also share a well-deserved, universal praise for their work. Aleksandar Hemon's Good Living Performed by Boyd Gaines Jhumpa Lahiri's Hell-Heaven Performed by Rita Wolf Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's The Thing Around Your Neck Performed by Condola Rashad Sherman Alexie's Breaking and Entering Performed by BD Wong
Authors
Nilanjana Sudeshna "Jhumpa" Lahiri was born in London and brought up in South Kingstown, Rhode Island. Brought up in America by a mother who wanted to raise her children to be Indian, she learned about her Bengali heritage from an early age. Lahiri graduated from South Kingstown High School and later received her B.A. in English literature from Barnard College in 1989. She then received multiple degrees from Boston University: an M.A. in English, an M.A. in Creative Writing, an M.A. in Comparative Literature and a Ph.D. in Renaissance Studies. She took up a fellowship at Provincetown's Fine Arts Work Center, which lasted for the next two years (1997-1998). In 2001, she married Alberto Vourvoulias-Bush, a journalist who was then Deputy Editor of TIME Latin America Lahiri currently lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children. She has been a Vice President of the PEN American Center since 2005. Lahiri taught creative writing at Boston University and the Rhode Island School of Design. Much of her short fiction concerns the lives of Indian-Americans, particularly Bengalis. She received the following awards, among others: 1999 - PEN/Hemingway Award (Best Fiction Debut of the Year) for Interpreter of Maladies; 2000 - The New Yorker's Best Debut of the Year for Interpreter of Maladies; 2000 - Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her debut Interpreter of Maladies
Sherman J. Alexie, Jr., was born in October 1966. A Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian, he grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Wellpinit, WA, about 50 miles northwest of Spokane, WA. Alexie has published 18 books to date. Alexie is an award-winning and prolific author and occasional comedian. Much of his writing draws on his experiences as a modern Native American. Sherman's best known works include The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Smoke Signals, and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. He lives in Seattle, Washington.
Hemon graduated from the University of Sarajevo with a degree in literature in 1990. He moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1992 and found that he was unable to write in Bosnian and spoke little English. In 1995, he started writing works in English and managed to showcase his work in prestigious magazines such as the New Yorker and Esquire. He is the author of The Lazarus Project, which was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and three books of short stories: The Question of Bruno; Nowhere Man, which was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; and Love and Obstacles. He was the recipient of a 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship and a “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation. He lives in Chicago.
