The Goethe-Institut Chicago is hosting a series of literary readings called Culture without Borders: Writing in Foreign Language. Every speaker lives in a country and culture different from the one in which they grew up, and they do not write in their native language. Through these readings, we explore how the authors have integrated their experiences with their writing.

Josip Novakovich moved from Croatia to the U.S. at the age of twenty. He has published a novel, April Fool’s Day, in ten languages. He’s also written two collections of narrative essays and three story collections: Infidelities: Stories of War and Lust, Yolk, and Salvation and Other Disasters. His work was anthologized in Best American Poetry, the Pushcart Prize collection and O. Henry Prize Stories. He has received the Whiting Writer’s Award, a Guggenheim fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, the Ingram Merrill Award and an American Book Award. He has also been a writing fellow at the New York Public Library. He teaches in the MFA program at Penn State University. He writes in English and has edited the anthology Stepmother Tongue, a collection of ESL stories.

Recorded Monday, March 09, 2009 at Goethe-Institut Chicago.