A Chicago Humanities Festival
Gary Shteyngart is the unlikely offspring of Anton Chekhov and Judd Apatow. His new memoir, Little Failure, takes us from his Lenin-loving, ratty-fur-overcoat-wearing childhood in Russia to the triumphs and catastrophes of his Queens adolescence. Shteyngart will be joined in conversation by Aleksandar Hemon, another brilliantly funny immigrant who found his calling as an American writer.
If you purchase a book & ticket package, you will pick up your book at the Jan 22 event. Unabridged Bookstore staff will have a list of all buyers provided by our box office staff.
“I fully expected Gary Shteyngart’s memoir of his search for love and sex in a Russian-Jewish-Queens-Oberlin upbringing to be as hilarious and indecorous and exact as it turns out to be; what I wasn’t entirely prepared for was for a book so soulful and pained in its recounting of the feints and false starts and, well, little failures of family love. Portnoy meets Chekhov meets Shteyngart! What could be better?”—Adam Gopnik
Speakers and Performers
Gary Shteyngart
Born in Leningrad in 1972, Gary Shteyngart came to the United States at the age of seven. He is the author of The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, Absurdistan, and Super Sad True Love Story. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, Esquire, GQ, Travel & Leisure, and the New York Times Magazine. He lives in New York City.
Aleksandar Hemon
Aleksandar Hemon is the author of the The Lazarus Project, The Question of Bruno, Nowhere Man, Love and Obstacles, and The Book of My Lives. Born in Sarajevo, Hemon traveled to Chicago in 1992, intending to stay for a matter of months. During his visit, Sarajevo came under siege, preventing him from returning home. He still lives in Chicago with his wife and daughters.