Zadie Smith & Michael Chabon
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CAP UCLA presents Zadie Smith & Michael Chabon A Conversation Thu, Nov 30, 2017 | Royce Hall Photo credits: Zadie Smith by Dominique Nabokov; Michael Chabon by Benjamin Tice Smith. East Side, West Side, All Around LA Welcome to the Center for the Art of Performance The Center for the Art of Performance is not a place. It’s more of a state of mind that embraces experimentation, encourages a culture of the curious, champions disruptors and dreamers and supports the commitment and courage of artists. We promote rigor, craft and excellence in all facets of the performing arts. Center for the Art of Performance presents 2017–18 SEASON VENUES Royce Hall, UCLA Freud Playhouse, UCLA Zadie Smith The Theatre at Ace Hotel Little Theater, UCLA Will Rogers State Historic Park & Michael Chabon UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance (CAP UCLA) is dedicated to the advancement of the contemporary performing arts in all disciplines—dance, music, spoken word A Conversation and theater—as well as emerging digital, collaborative and cross-platforms utilized by today’s leading artists. Part of UCLA’s School of the Arts and Architecture, CAP UCLA Thu, Nov 30, 2017 | Royce Hall curates and facilitates direct exposure to contemporary performance from around the Running time: Approx. 90 minutes | No intermission globe, supporting artists who are creating extraordinary works of art and fostering a vibrant learning community both on and off the UCLA campus. The organization invests in the creative process by providing artists with financial backing and time to experiment Funds provided by the George C. Perkins Fund. and expand their practices through strategic partnerships, residencies and collaborations. As an influential voice within the local, national, and global arts community, CAP UCLA serves to connect audiences across generations in order to galvinize a living archive of our culture. cap.ucla.edu #CAPUCLA MESSAGE FROM THE CENTER ABOUT THE ARTISTS Welcome to Royce Hall and UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance. Zadie Smith We’re honored to present Zadie Smith, who first appeared at Royce Hall in Novelist Zadie Smith was born in North London in 1975 to an English father and September 2006, a prize-winning author of essays, short stories and the a Jamaican mother. She read English at Cambridge, before graduating in 1997. novels, White Teeth, On Beauty, The Autograph Man, NW and, her most recent, Swing Time. Her acclaimed first novel, White Teeth (2000), is a vibrant portrait of contemporary multicultural London, told through the stories of three She is joined by Michael Chabon, also a prize-winning author of essays, short ethnically diverse families. The book won a number of awards and prizes, stories and the novels The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, WonderBoys, The Amazing including the Guardian First Book Award, the Whitbread First Novel Award, Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Telegraph the Commonwealth Writers Prize (Overall Winner, Best First Book), and Avenue and, his most recent, Moonglow. two BT Ethnic and Multicultural Media Awards (Best Book/Novel and Best Female Media Newcomer). It was also shortlisted for the Mail on Sunday/John Moonglow and Swing Time share remarkable similarities. Both explore Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Author’s Club First influence of family, cultural heritage and politics in shaping identity and Novel Award. White Teeth has been translated into over 20 languages and was how personal obligations are (or are not) affected by public events. Both adapted for Channel 4 television for broadcast in 2002. reflect the unlikely blend of emulation and resentment that molds children’s relationships with their elders. Both are told in the first person by a narrator Zadie Smith’s The Autograph Man (2002), a story of loss, obsession and the who strongly resembles the writer. And both narratives jump back and forth nature of celebrity, won the 2003 Jewish Quarterly Wingate Literary Prize for in time between the rather dull present and the richly colorful memories of Fiction. In 2003 and 2013 she was named by Granta magazine as one of 20 childhood and adolescence. “Best of Young British Novelists.” On Beauty won the 2006 Orange Prize for Fiction and her novel NW was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Tonight is a rare chance to experience a conversation by two of the top Ondaatje Prize and the Women’s Prize for Fiction and was named as one of The literary minds of our time, exploring questions of cultural identity and the New York Times “10 Best Books of 2012.” Zadie Smith writes regularly for The conflicting forces that surround the privileged and the dispossessed. New Yorker and the New York Review of Books. She published one collection of essays, Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays (2009) and is working on a book of essays entitled Feel Free. Her new novel is Swing Time (November 2016). Zadie Smith is currently a tenured professor of Creative Writing at New York University. COLSON Michael Chabon Michael Chabon was born in 1963, in Washington, D.C. and raised mostly in WHITEHEAD Columbia, a planned city with utopian aspirations in the Maryland tobacco country. He studied at Carnegie-Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh, Thu, Apr 19, 2018 received an M.F.A. in Creative Writing at UC Irvine, and has spent most of Royce Hall the past two decades in California, with brief sojourns in Washington State, Florida, and New York State. Since 1997, he has been living with his wife, Ayelet Waldman, also a novelist, and their children, in Berkeley. Michael Chabon’s first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (1988), was originally TICKETS ON written for his master’s thesis at UC Irvine and became a New York Times bestseller. His second novel, Wonder Boys (1995), also a bestseller, was made SALE NOW! into a critically-acclaimed film featuring actors Michael Douglas and Tobey 310-825-2101 | cap.ucla.edu Maguire. His third novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, was selected by the American Library Association as one of the Notable Books of 2000 and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN/ Faulkner Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. It won the New York Society Library Prize for Fiction, the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award, the Commonwealth Club Gold Medal, and the Pulitzer Prize. Chabon is also the author of two collections of short stories, A Model World and Other Stories (1990) and Werewolves In Their Youth (1999). His young adult novel, Summerland, won the 2003 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature. His children’s book, The Astonishing Secret of Awesome Man was illustrated by Jake Parker. He has also written a number of screenplays, including John Carter (March 2012), and teleplays (sharing story credit for Spiderman 2), and edited The Best American Short Stories 2005. Chabon’s story Son of the Wolfman was chosen for the 1999 O. Henry collection and for a National Magazine Award. Chabon’s novella The Final Solution (2004) was awarded the 2005 National Jewish Book Award and also the 2003 Aga Khan Prize for Fiction by The Paris Review. Chabon’s novel, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, a hardboiled detective novel set in an alternate world where Israel failed to be born and millions of European Jewish refugees took shelter in Alaska, became a New York Times bestseller immediately upon publication and was nominated for an Edgar Award; it also won the Nebula Award and the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2008. In November 2007, his swashbuckling adventure novel, Gentlemen of the Road, serialized in 15 chapters in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, was published by Del Rey. His novel Telegraph Avenue came out in 2012. In January 2015 Chabon collaborated with acclaimed music producer Mark Ronson as lyricist for Ronson’s album titled Uptown Special. His novel Moonglow was chosen by the Jewish Community Library of San Francisco to be the centerpiece of their One Bay One Book program for the 2016–17 season, and was awarded the Gold Medal for fiction by the Commonwealth Club of California’s 86th Annual California Book Awards. Art in Action Chabon was presented with the Jewish Book Council’s 2016 Modern Literary Achievement Award “for his general contribution to modern Jewish literature, including his most recent work, Moonglow.” Chabon’s essay collections include “Art in Action is somewhere between an academic symposium and the Maps & Legends and Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures & Regrets of a vibrancy of an eagerly awaiting coloring book. This is where we explore in Husband, Father & Son. He has also edited, with Ayelet Waldman, Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation, a book of essays about 50 public to release the energetic potential of sharing ideas together.” years of Israeli occupation in Palestine. In 2018 he will publish a collection of —Kristy Edmunds essays about fatherhood entitled Pops: Fatherhood in Pieces (HarperCollins). Art in Action, our free public engagement program, offers a wide range of experiential Chabon accepted the position of chairman of the board of directors at the MacDowell Colony. In March 2012 he was voted into the American Academy of art activities around the ideas emanating from the work of artists on our season. Through Arts and Letters. workshops, lectures, master classes, films, salons and art-making forums, Art in Action provides a platform for our UCLA and Los Angeles communities to exchange ideas and participate in shared cultural experiences. This Event Program was Printed by... SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR DINING PARTNERS This season, we’re continuing two ongoing initiatives and introducing a third. 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