9/19: 10th Annual BK Book Festival Awards Jonathan Lethem “Best of Brooklyn” Award at Gala Event
*BKBF Dates: Children’s Day: 9/19 / Gala & BOBI Award Event: 9/19
Evening / Festival: 9/20*
Lethem to participate in two programs at Sunday 9/20 festival, discussing storytelling and New York City with John Leguizamo; and exploring literary inspiration with Edwidge Danticat & Pete Hamill.
Brooklyn, NY—Friday, September 18, 2015—This weekend marks the 10th anniversary of the Brooklyn Book Festival. The Festival brings together acclaimed and best-selling authors for New York City’s largest free literary festival, which welcomes back AT&T as its major sponsor. This hip and diverse festival draws tens of thousands each year to the global creative capital of Brooklyn, NYC. This year the festival will honor Jonathan Lethem as the winner of the Festival’s Best of Brooklyn (BoBi) award.
Begun as a start-up festival in 2006, the Brooklyn Book Festival has grown to an international affair, drawing writers and attendees from around the word. In 2007, the Festival launched its BoBi award, an award designed to celebrate authors with a close connection to the city, whose work exemplifies literary excellence. Past honorees demonstrate the breadth of that talent, from bestselling YA author Lois Lowry to National Book Award winner James McBride, Pulitzer-winner Jhumpa Lahiri, and award-winning luminaries Paul Auster, Walter Mosley, John Ashbery, Pete Hamill, and Edwidge Danticat.
This year’s winner Jonathan Lethem is the author of The Fortress of Solitude, Dissident Gardens, and seven other novels. His hometown, Brooklyn, was the setting for several of his works, including his fifth, Motherless Brooklyn, which won the National Book Critic’s Circle Award. Lethem culls from influences as varied as comic books, detective novels, and pop music. His latest work, Lucky Alan and Other Stories, is a collection of short stories. Lethem’s writing has been translated into over thirty languages.
Brooklyn Literary Council Chair Johnny Temple: “It’s a great pleasure to present this year’s BoBi Award to Jonathan Lethem. He is one of the few authors whose own work connects the “old” Brooklyn literature of folks like Thomas Wolfe and Pete Hamill with the “new” writers like Colson Whitehead, Jennifer Egan, and Jhumpa Lahiri. His best-selling novel Fortress of Solitude is unparalleled in its depiction of Brooklyn’s changing landscape in the early twenty-first century. Plus, Jonathan has been a stalwart supporter of the festival since our very first year and has helped us to become New York City’s biggest annual public book event.”
The Festival will present the BoBi award to Jonathan Lethem at a star-studded gala mingle on Saturday, September 19th. At the Festival, Lethem will appear at two events: the Best of Brooklyn, in conversation with Edwidge Danticat and Pete Hamill, moderated by Johnny Temple; and at “Where Dreams are Made,” a conversation with John Leguizamo on how the city has shaped them as storytellers.
Best of Brooklyn
St. Ann & The Holy Trinity Church, 157 Montague St
September 20, 2015, 3:30pm
Best of Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Book Festival pays homage to the Festival’s literary heritage each year by presenting the BoBi Award to an author who exemplifies the spirit and character of Brooklyn. Join 2015 BoBi Honoree Jonathan Lethem (Lucky Alan: And Other Stories), in conversation with past BoBi honorees Edwidge Danticat (Claire of the Sea Light) and Pete Hamill (Snow in August) as they talk about a writer’s life and being part of, and influenced by, Brooklyn’s literary lineage. Moderated by Johnny Temple, Brooklyn Literary Council Chair.
Concrete Jungle—Where Dreams are Made
St. Francis College Auditorium, 180 Remsen St
September 20, 2015, 12:00pm
Concrete Jungle—Where Dreams are Made. John Leguizamo (Ghetto Klown) and Jonathan Lethem (Lucky Alan and Other Stories) come together to discuss how the city shaped them as storytellers—and how their stories have been adapted on stage, screen, across comics or books, and ever reinvented. Screen Projection. Moderated by Steph Opitz, Literary Director, Texas Book Festival.
About the Brooklyn Book Festival – 9/14-9/21: Children’s Day, Saturday 9/19 / Festival Day, Sunday, 9/20
The Brooklyn Book Festival is presented by the non-profit Brooklyn Book Festival, Inc., and the Brooklyn Book Festival Literary Council. AT&T is the major partner with additional support from the Amazon Literary Partnership, Brooklyn Borough President’s Office, Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, Con Edison, Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, Forest City Ratner Companies, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, NYC Department of Parks & Recreation, NYU, and TD Bank. Media sponsors are ABC7NY, WNYC and Observer.
The Festival’s cultural and programming partners include BAM, Congregation Mt. Sinai, Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn Law School, Brooklyn Public Library, Cave Canem, Center for Fiction, National Book Foundation, New York Review of Books, PEN American Center, Poetry Society of America, St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church, St. Francis College, The Nation, and the Whiting Foundation.
This year – in celebration of its 10th Anniversary – BKBF will present a dedicated Children’s Day for young readers, on September 19th, from 10AM-4PM. The BKBF Children’s Day (for children ages 2 to 11) will showcase invited writers and illustrators at the centrally-located, beautiful MetroTech Commons in Downtown Brooklyn, on two tented stages and in the auditorium of NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering.
Bookend events (here) – Monday, 9/14 through Monday, 9/21
Children’s Day events (here) – Saturday, 9/19
This year – in celebration of its 10th Anniversary – BKBF will present a dedicated Children’s Day for young readers, on September 19th, from 10AM-4PM. The BKBF Children’s Day (for children ages 2 to 11) will showcase invited writers and illustrators at the centrally-located, beautiful MetroTech Commons in Downtown Brooklyn, on two tented stages and in the auditorium of NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering.
Brooklyn Book Festival Day events (here) – Sunday, 9/20
Be sure to visit http://www.brooklynbookfestival.org or check out the official Facebook page, follow the Festival on Instagram (@bkbookfest), on Twitter (@BKBF), and on Tumblr.
