Chicago Humanities Festival Announces Winter 2014 Events

The Chicago Humanities Festival (CHF) announces its Winter 2014 programs: featuring critically acclaimed authors Gary Shteyngart, Karen Russell, and Mohsin Hamid. Kicking off the new year, writer Gary Shteyngart will discuss his just-published memoir Little Failure with Chicago literary star Aleksandar Hemon on Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2014. Following in February, The New Yorker "20 Under 40" writer and MacArthur Fellow Karen Russell will talk about her latest book Vampires in the Lemon Grove with Time Out Chicago's Laura Pearson on Thursday, Feb. 13, 2014. Concluding in March, The New York Times bestselling author Mohsin Hamid will speak about his most recent novel How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, on Tuesday, March 11, 2014. All events will take place at 6 p.m. at First United Methodist Church at The Chicago Temple (77 W Washington St). Tickets will go on sale to CHF Members Wednesday, Dec. 4 at 10 a.m. and to the public Monday, Dec. 9 at 10 a.m. Visit chicagohumanities.org for more information.

"After coming off a fantastic Fall Festival, we are thrilled to announce our Winter 2014 programming," said CHF Artistic Director Matti Bunzl. "The Chicago Humanities Festival is continuing to expand its year-round presence and we are delighted to do so with three authors on the cutting edge of the global literary scene."

Winter 2014 Schedule:
G=General Admission, M=CHF Member, ST=Students/Teachers

Little Failure: Gary Shteyngart in Conversation with Aleksandar Hemon | Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2014
6 p.m. | First United Methodist Church at The Chicago Temple
G $15, M $10, ST $5 | Book/ticket packages also available

Gary Shteyngart is the unlikely offspring of Anton Chekhov and Judd Apatow. His new memoir, Little Failure, takes us from his Lenin-loving, ratty-fur-overcoat-wearing childhood in Russia to the triumphs and catastrophes of his Queens adolescence. Shteyngart will be joined in conversation by Aleksandar Hemon, another brilliantly funny immigrant who found his calling as an American writer.

Born in Leningrad in 1972, Gary Shteyngart came to the United States at the age of seven. He is the author of The Russian Debutante's Handbook, Super Sad True Love Story, and Absurdistan, which was chosen as one of the ten best books of 2006 by The New York Times Book Review and Time magazine, as well as a book of the year by the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and San Francisco Chronicle. His work has also appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, GQ, Travel & Leisure, and The New York Times Magazine. In June 2010, Shteyngart was named one of The New Yorker magazine's "20 under 40" luminary fiction writers.

Vampires in the Lemon Grove:
A Conversation with Karen Russell | Thursday, Feb. 13, 2014
6 p.m. | First United Methodist Church at The Chicago Temple
G $15, M $10, ST $5

The worlds of writer Karen Russell are wild and weird. Her latest, Vampires in the Lemon Grove, is no exception. Who else would morph Japanese women into silkworms, expose the surprising antidote to a vampire couple's bloodthirsty inclinations, and rewrite the Iraq war by entering the tattooed back of a veteran? Time Out Chicago's Laura Pearson will join this sublime storyteller, newly minted MacArthur Fellow, and one of The New Yorker's "20 Under 40," as she reinvents magical realism for our generation.

American novelist and short story writer Karen Russell is a native of Miami and an undergraduate alumna of Northwestern University. Her stories have been featured in The Best American Short Stories, Conjunctions, Granta, The New Yorker, Oxford American, and Zoetrope. In 2012 she won the National Magazine Award for fiction, and her first novel, Swamplandia!, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. A 2013 MacArthur Fellow, she is a graduate of Columbia University's MFA program and was also a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow and a 2012 Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin.

Mohsin Hamid: How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia
Anita and Prabha Sinha Program | Tuesday, March 11, 2014
6 p.m. | First United Methodist Church at The Chicago Temple
G $15, M $10, ST $5

Who doesn't love a get-rich-quick scheme? That's the conceit of Mohsin Hamid's witty and wicked novel How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, which cleverly mimics the self-help genre to tell the story of one man's rise from rural poverty to massive wealth. Hamid, a Booker Prize finalist and The New York Times bestselling author, gives voice to the relentless churning of our global moment.

Mohsin Hamid grew up in Lahore, Pakistan and attended Princeton University and Harvard Law School. His first novel, Moth Smoke, won the Betty Trask Award and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Prize. His second, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, spent over two months on the The New York Times bestseller list. It was published in over 30 languages and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and was named by The Guardian as one of the books that defined the decade. Hamid contributes to Time, The Guardian, The New York Times and The Washington Post.

For more information on CHF's Winter 2014 programs, visit chicagohumanities.org/events. Tickets to Gary Shteyngart, Karen Russell, and Mohsin Hamid will go on sale to CHF Members Wednesday, Dec. 4 at 10 a.m. and to the public Monday, Dec. 9 at 10 a.m. Tickets will be available online at chicagohumanities.org or through the CHF Box Office at 312-494-9509, Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tickets range from $10-15, with a limited number of reduced-price tickets available for students and teachers (with valid ID). A $6 per order processing fee is applied to all pre-event sales. Tickets are $5 more per ticket at the door.

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