Rough Draft, Women's History Month Kingston, and Radio Kingston are thrilled to welcome author Valeria Luiselli to read from her novel, Lost Children Archive, named by the New York Times as one of the best books of 2019. Journalist Mariel Fiori, managing editor of La Voz magazine, and host of La Voz con Mariel Fiori at Radio Kingston, will introduce Luiselli and facilitate an audience Q&A.

In this fiercely imaginative follow-up to the American Book Award-winning Tell Me How It Ends, an artist couple set out with their two children on a road trip from New York to Arizona in the heat of summer. As the family travels west, the bonds between them begin to fray: a fracture is growing between the parents, one the children can almost feel beneath their feet.

Through ephemera such as songs, maps and a Polaroid camera, the children try to make sense of both their family's crisis and the larger one engulfing the news: the stories of thousands of kids trying to cross the southwestern border into the United States but getting detained--or lost in the desert along the way. The Washington Post called Lost Children Archive "an epic road trip [that also] captures the unruly intimacies of marriage and parenthood. . . . This is a novel that daylights our common humanity, and challenges us to reconcile our differences."

This event is free, and admission will be available on a first-come, first-serve basis. Those who wish to guarantee a seat can do so by purchasing a copy of Lost Children Archive from Rough Draft, in-store or online at roughdraftny.com/preorder. Copies of Lost Children Archive will also be for sale at the event, and Luiselli will sign books after her reading and audience Q&A. (Books purcahsed at Rough Draft will be signed first and given priority, but fans are also welcome to bring books they received elsewhere.)

Refreshments can be purchased from the bar. (Please, no outside food or beverage.) RSVPs through Eventbrite are not required but are much appreciated. It lets us stay in touch with you in case of event changes, and helps us know how many people to expect. PLEASE NOTE: THE ONLY WAY TO GUARANTEE A RESERVED SEAT AT THIS EVENT IS BY PURCHASING LOST CHILDREN ARCHIVE FROM ROUGH DRAFT.

While Rough Draft is an all-ages establishment, this event may include mature themes and adult language, and may not be suitable for young children. This event is part of Women’s History Month Kingston and is sponsored by Radio Kingston.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Valeria Luiselli was born in Mexico City and grew up in South Korea, South Africa and India. An acclaimed writer of both fiction and nonfiction, she is the author of the essay collection Sidewalks; the novels Faces in the Crowd and The Story of My Teeth; Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions and Lost Children Archive. She is the recipient of a 2019 MacArthur Fellowship and the winner of two Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, an American Book Award, and The Carnegie Medal and has been nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Kirkus Prize, and the Booker Prize. She has been a National Book Foundation "5 Under 35" honoree and the recipient of a Bearing Witness Fellowship from the Art for Justice Fund. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Granta, and McSweeney's, among other publications, and has been translated into more than twenty languages. She is a Writer in Residence at Bard College and lives in New York City.