Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures is thrilled and honored to share our 2018/19 line-up for Ten Evenings. Executive Director Stephanie Flom will announce the line-up from the stage at the start of the evening featuring the final lecture of this season by Viet Thanh Nguyen on Monday, April 9. The 2017/18 season has seen record-setting attendance with each lecture in the 1,800-seat Carnegie Music Hall sold to capacity.
The 2018/19 season boasts a roster of literary super stars—all claiming bragging rights to prestigious awards and critical acclaim. With the exception of Joyce Carol Oates who appeared in 1992, each is appearing on Ten Evenings, the mainstage series of Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures, for the first time.
Says Ms. Flom on the authors being presented next season: “These celebrated authors and their significant works reflect the topics of our time—immigration, racism, gender and class inequality, globalization, and identity—while conveying the human elements of compassion and hope. We need these books.”
Joyce Carol Oates/ Monday, September 24, 2018
The iconic, extraordinary Joyce Carol Oates is the recipient of the National Book Award and five-time Pulitzer Prize finalist. Beautiful Days is a collection of mesmerizing stories of passion, independence, and defiance.
Luis Alberto Urrea/ Monday, October 8, 2018
Master storyteller and Pulitzer Prize finalist Luis Alberto Urrea explores themes of love, loss, and triumph. The House of Broken Angels is a bittersweet portrait of a Mexican-American family facing the imminent death of its beloved patriarch.
Katherine Boo / Monday, October 22, 2018
Pulitzer Prize winner Katherine Boo’s breathtaking book Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity humanizes bewildering inequality through the stories of families striving toward a better life.
Masha Gessen/ Monday, November 5, 2018
Russian and American journalist Masha Gessen is the winner of the National Book Award for The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia—a powerful and urgent cautionary tale for our time.
Tayari Jones/ Monday, November 19, 2018
Critically acclaimed and award-winning novelist Tayari Jones provides a masterpiece of storytelling, asking brave questions about race and class in her instant bestseller and 2018 Oprah Book Club selection An American Marriage.
Dave Eggers/ Monday, December 10, 2018
The Monk of Mokah is the latest “gripping, triumphant adventure” (Los Angeles Times) from Dave Eggers, bestselling author of National Book Award Finalist A Hologram for the King and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Mokhtar Alkhanshali, the subject of The Monk of Mokah and the founder and CEO of Port of Mokah coffee will appear with Dave Eggers.
Jill Lepore/ Monday, January 14, 2019
Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore offers a groundbreaking investigation into the origins of our divided nation. These Truths: A History of the United States follows her riveting Secret History of Wonder Woman.
Ottessa Moshfegh/ Monday, February 18, 2019
A celebrated new literary voice, Ottessa Moshfegh’s debut novel Eileen was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and her short stories in The Paris Review awarded the Plimpton Prize. She writes with dark humor, tenderness, and compassion. She writes My Year of Rest and Relaxation with dark humor, tenderness, and compassion.
Valeria Luiselli/ Monday, March 11, 2019
Valeria Luiselli was born in Mexico City. Her critically acclaimed narrative Tell Me How It Ends has been described as a call to action and “vital for understanding the crisis that immigrants to the U.S. are facing” (Publisher’s Weekly).
Min Jin Lee/ Monday, April 1, 2019
Min Jin Lee’s National Book Award Finalist, Pachinko, is a gorgeous, page-turning saga where four generations of a poor Korean immigrant family fight to control their destiny in 20th-century Japan, exiled from a home they never knew.
The 2018/19 Ten Evenings series is presented by Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures, made possible with the support of The Drue Heinz Trust, and presented in association with the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh. This is the 28th season of Pittsburgh’s literary lecture series. All programs will be presented on Monday evenings at 7:30 pm in Oakland’s historic Carnegie Music Hall.
Subscription renewals for the 2018/19 Ten Evenings are available May 1, new subscriptions on June 1, and single tickets go on sale July 5. Ticket prices remain affordable ranging from $15 to $35; student tickets are available for $10 with student identification. More information is available by visiting pittsburghlectures.org or calling Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures, 412.622.8866.