On May 15, at 6:30 pm, FLAD will host the American writer Tess Gunty, winner of the National Book Award 2022 for the best fiction book with The Rabbit Hutch – ‘O contrário de nada’, published in Portugal by Alfaguara -, for another edition of Meet the Author – Meetings with American Writers. This initiative is a partnership with the newspaper PÚBLICO.

Tess Gunty was born in 1993 in South Bend, Indiana, and lives in Los Angeles. She studied English and Creative Writing at two renowned universities – she graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a Bachelor of Arts in English and from New York University with a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing.

It is from this rust belt state, a place of economic and working-class decay, that she creates an imaginary city for her debut novel. The absence of the dignified representation of this Midwestern state in the American literary scene, and the caricatured portrayal made by the politicians of an unsophisticated state, where there is only one type of person, the angry voter who votes for Donald Trump and easily manipulated, led Tess Gunty to write to reclaim places like her homeland.

The result was The Rabbit Hutch, her debut novel, which was distinguished in 2022 with the National Book Award, one of the most relevant literary awards today, and making its author the youngest writer to receive this award since 1960, the year in which it was awarded to Philip Roth.

The Rabbit Hutch also received 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 newspaper. The goal is to provide Portuguese readers with closer contact with some of the most respected writers in the USA. The sessions take place monthly and are open to the general public, free of charge. The guest authors are interviewed by journalist Isabel Lucas.

The conversation with Tess Gunty will take place on May 15, at 6:30 pm, at the FLAD Auditorium, at Rua do Sacramento à Lapa, 21, in Lisbon.

The session is open to the public and admission is free. If you want to attend, confirm your attendance here.

If you need further clarification, please email us at eventos.cultura@flad.pt