RANDA JARRAR

Just realized that yesterday’s NYT Book Review was all about short story collections– Annie Proulx’s, Sana Krasikov’s, Anne Enright’s, and Claire Keegan’s. Very exciting…

…were so fun! I’d never been to Boston; it was great to meet Smoki Bacon and do an interview for the Literati Scene…

Followed by a walk down Newberry…

Ending at the Public Library, where I wrote…

and read in the courtyard…

Then stood outside, where I found out from my publicist that my book got 4 stars and a review in this week’s issue of People Magazine…

Later that evening, I ended up at Harvard Square Bookstore, where I read…

I forgot my camera Saturday night, which was probably a good thing, because it rained like a motha and I walked around the Lower East Side barefoot to avoid Soggy Shoe Syndrome. My friend and superstar agent accompanied me to Bluestockings. It was an amazing turn-out: all the Other Press peeps came, as did my sister and brother, my college BFF, my Norton Island friends, some long-time readers, plus Richard Grayson, Sean Carman, and Maud Newton.

I had such a great time listening to the rain fall outside and my friends laugh inside.

I feel so blessed.

If you’re in NYC: please brave the storm tomorrow and come see me read at Bluestockings on Allen Street. I’ll start at 7. Old friends and family will be there; I’m so excited to see them and to meet all the wonderfully talented Other Press people. And I’d love to finally meet all my New York area readers, so come!

My review of Rabih Alameddine’s enchanting novel, The Hakawati, appears in this month’s issue of Words Without Borders. A short excerpt of the review here:

More than three quarters of the way into the novel, Alameddine writes, “The best stories always begin with the appearance of a woman.” He follows his own advice, opening his novel centuries in the past with Fatima, the Alexandrian. In order to help her emir produce a son, Fatima offers to travel back to Egypt to visit a healer. When the emir asks why the healer can’t come to him, Fatima says healers never leave home, because home is the source of their magic. And thus the novel launches its first character on an intricate, sometimes deadly, and always absorbing adventure, and the rest of the cast follows Fatima’s example. First to follow is Osama al-Kharrat, the narrator of the book, who has come back to Lebanon after a long self-imposed exile in L.A. to stand vigil at his father’s hospital bedside. Osama feels foreign to himself in Lebanon. “I was a tourist in a bizarre land,” he says, “I was home.” In the first three pages of his novel, Alameddine mentions the magic, foreignness, and pull of home—and the idea of belonging. Exile becomes a central theme for the rest of the book.

Enjoy the entire review here, and better yet, buy the book.

Also in the issue, “international writers contemplate the reversals of various fortunes,” with stories from Sarajevo, Sao Paulo, and more.

I’m reading with Padma Viswanathan, author of The Toss of a Lemon, tomorrow night at the Harvard Bookstore in Cambridge. It’s an event sponsored by the Center for New Words. I hope you’ll check us out, or forward the info to your Boston friends!

My son started middle school today. I taught my first class of the semester. And…the novel is officially out. I saw stacks of it at Shaman Drum and Borders- such a great feeling. I’m so excited!

…was so cool! Some highlights:

I miss the South!