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Joyce Carol Oates

In conversation with Michael Krasny

Monday, October 19, 2009 |  Herbst Theatre, 8pm

A deep curiosity about the world characterizes Joyce Carol Oates' impressive body of work that spans genres, subjects and form - from Black Girl/White Girl, a fictionalized manuscript of racial tension at a small college in the 1970s to On Boxing, a collection of essays about the sport, gender identity and aesthetics of boxing, which Oates has followed since childhood, when her father would take her to Golden Gloves' matches. Her 39 novels, including three forthcoming books, explore themes of class, sexual identity, violence, and fantasy and do so through subjects as diverse as the slums of Detroit, the mind of a serial killer, the life of Marilyn Monroe and the quiet crumbling of perfect families in small town America. Her many works include, them, The Gravedigger's Daughter, We Were the Mulvaneys, What I lived For, and Blonde. In her forthcoming novel, Little Bird of Heaven, Oates begins with the murder of a young mother in Sparta, New York and tells the story in the voices of the woman's son and the daughter of her lover. The book takes a harrowing look at guilt, obsession and the ravages of time and love - all carried by Oates' powerful, lyrical prose.

Michael Krasny is the host of the KQED radio program Forum. He is also a Professor of English at San Francisco State University and the author of Off Mike: A Memoir of Talk Radio and Literary Life. His many interviews for City Arts & Lectures include Toni Morrison, Salman Rushdie and Norman Mailer.

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