A Booker Prize finalist discusses a new novel that leaps across generations, ideas, and centuries, as if different eras were separated by only a door.

Lina and her ailing father arrive at an enclave called The Sea, a staging post between migrations, with only a few possessions. In this mysterious and shape-shifting place, a building made of time, pasts and futures collide. Lina befriends her neighbors: Bento, a Jewish scholar in seventeenth-century Amsterdam; Blucher, a philosopher in 1930s Germany fleeing Nazi persecution; and Jupiter, a poet of Tang Dynasty China. Memory, political revolution, generational change, and the ethical imagination are at the heart of Lina’s illuminating conversations with her fellows in The Sea: about how we come to believe what we believe, and how every person is an irreplaceable, unique vessel of history. But it is only when her father, his strength fading, reveals how he and Lina came to seek refuge in The Sea that she begins to understand their family's tragic past, and the acts of love and betrayal shaping her own story.

Madeleine Thien worked on The Book of Records during her 2021-2022 Fellowship at the Library's Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. She will discuss her book with writer Jiayang Fan.

To join this event in-person | Please be sure to register for an In-Person Ticket. Doors will open 30 minutes before the program begins. For free events, we generally overbook to ensure a full house. Priority will be given to those who have registered in advance, but registration does not guarantee admission. All registered seats are released shortly before start time, and seats may become available at that time. A standby line will form shortly before the program.

To join the livestream | A livestream of this event will be available on the NYPL event page. To receive an email reminder shortly in advance of the event, please be sure to register! If you encounter any issues, please join us on NYPL's YouTube channel.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Madeleine Thien is the author of three novels and a collection of stories, and her work has been translated into twenty-five languages. Her most recent novel, Do Not Say We Have Nothing, won the Governor General’s Award and was a finalist for the Booker Prize and the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her writing has appeared in the New Yorker, Granta, the New York Review of Books, and elsewhere. She lives in Montreal.

Jiayang Fan has been a staff writer at the New Yorker since 2016. Her reporting on China, American politics, and culture has appeared in the magazine and on newyorker.com since 2010. She is at work on her first book, Motherland, to be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

GET THE BOOK:

• Borrow: NYPL Catalog


• E-Book app: SimplyE


• Purchase: NYPL Shop

Don't have a New York Public Library card? Get one here!

If you have symptoms consistent with COVID-19 or suspect you have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive, please stay home.

ACCESSIBILITY

In-Person | Assistive listening devices and/or hearing loops are available at the venue. You can request a free ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation or CART (Communication Access Real-Time Translation) captioning service by emailing your request at least two weeks in advance of the event: email accessibility@nypl.org or use this Gmail template. This venue is fully accessible to wheelchairs.

Livestream | Captions and a transcript will be provided. Media used over the course of the conversation will be accompanied by alt text and/or audio description. You can request a free ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation by emailing your request at least two weeks in advance of the event: email accessibility@nypl.org or use this Gmail template.

CONNECT

Please submit all press inquiries at least 48 hours before the event: email press@nypl.org or use this Gmail template.

For all other questions and inquiries, please email cullmancenter@nypl.org or use this Gmail template.

The New York Public Library's free services and resources are made possible thanks to the support of the Friends of the Library. Join this group of Library lovers and take advantage of special membership benefits, like invitations to members-only virtual events, discounts at the Library Shop, and more. Join now.

The Cullman Center is made possible by a generous endowment from Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman in honor of Brooke Russell Astor, with major support provided by Mrs. John L. Weinberg, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Estate of Charles J. Liebman, The von der Heyden Family Foundation, John and Constance Birkelund, and The Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation, and with additional gifts from Helen and Roger Alcaly, The Rona Jaffe Foundation, The Arts and Letters Foundation Inc., William W. Karatz, Merilee and Roy Bostock, and Cullman Center Fellows.