Nathan Englander Talks THE TWENTY-SEVENTH MAN at NYPL, 10/18

Novelist Nathan Englander discusses his new play, The Twenty-Seventh Man, with the theater director Barry Edelstein, in a conversation moderated by the journalist Alexis Soloski. Set in a Russian prison in 1952, the play is adapted from one of Englander's stories in the collection For the Relief of Unbearable Urges. It will be performed at The Public Theater from November 7 to December 9.

Nathan Englander is the author of two internationally best-selling story collections, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges and What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, as well as a highly acclaimed novel,The Ministry of Special Cases. A former Fellow at the Cullman Center and at the American Academy in Berlin, he has won the PEN/Malamud Award, the Bard Fiction Prize, and a place on The New Yorker's list of "20 Writers for the 21st Century." He teaches in the Graduate Writing Program at Hunter College. His short fiction and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, and The Washington Post.

Barry Edelstein has directed classical and contemporary plays over the past twenty years, including several acclaimed productions of works by Shakespeare. He was head of the Off-Broadway Classic Stage Company from 1998 to 2003, and was appointed Director of the Shakespeare Lab at The Public Theater in 2007. He is the author of Thinking Shakespeare.

Alexis Soloski is a drama critic for the Village Voice and a member of the New York Drama Critics Circle. She writes frequently for The New York Times, The Guardian, and American Theater, where she has served as Jerome fellow. A post-doctoral lecturer in Literature Humanities, she teaches at Columbia University.

This event is co-sponsored by The Public Theater and The Library for the Performing Arts. For more information, visit http://www.nypl.org/events/programs/2012/10/18/nathan-englander-conversation-barry-edelstein.