Tess Gunty: Purgatory is for everyone and it's in Indiana

Born and raised in South Bend, Indiana, in the middle of the rust belt, Tess Gunty revolted against the caricature portrayal made by politicians of a failed, unsophisticated state, where there are only angry people who vote for Donald Trump, to create the 2022 National Book Award-winning novel, ‘The Rabbit Hutch’.

On May 15th, the American writer Tess Gunty, was hosted by FLAD, for a conversation with PÚBLICO journalist Isabel Lucas, for the Meet the Author – Meetings with American Writers series. See it in full here:

‘The Rabbit Hutch’ was awarded the Barnes and Noble Discover Prize and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award and the British Book Award for Debut Fiction.

Included by The New Yorker in its list of “Twelve Essential Readings”, this novel also won the distinction of Best Book of the Year in media such as The New York Times, TIME, Literary Hub, Chicago Tribune, Kirkus, NPR, Oprah Daily and People.

Meet the Author is an initiative of FLAD, in partnership with PÚBLICO. The goal is to provide Portuguese readers with closer contact with some of the most respected writers in the USA.

he sessions take place monthly and are open to the general public, free of charge. The guest authors are interviewed by journalist Isabel Lucas.