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Thursday, May 14 at 7:00 PM
Barnes & Noble - Union Square
33 East 17th Street

View nationwide tour dates for Aleksander Hemon

Meet critically-acclaimed author Aleksandar Hemon as he reads from his new collection of short stories, LOVE AND OBSTACLES

As part of Barnes & Noble's "Upstairs At The Square" series,

Hemon will be interviewed on-stage by Katherine Lanpher and joined by singer Alina Simone, who will perform songs from her new CD (www.alinasimone.com)

"Hemon is a world-class writer of seismic depth, riptide humor, wine-dark language, and unflinching candor." - Booklist starred review of Love and Obstacles

About Love and Obstacles:

A new book of linked stories by the author of the National Book Award finalist The Lazarus Project.

Aleksandar Hemon earned his reputation- and his MacArthur "genius grant"-for his short stories, and he returns to the form with a powerful collection of linked stories that stands with The Lazarus Project as the best work of his celebrated career. A few of the stories have never been published before; the others have appeared in The New Yorker, and several of those have also been included in The Best American Short Stories. All are infused with the dazzling, astonishingly creative prose and the remarkable, haunting autobiographical elements that have distinguished Hemon as one of the most original and illustrious voices of our time.

What links the stories in Love and Obstacles is the narrator, a young man who-like Hemon himself-was raised in Yugoslavia and immigrated to the United States. The stories of Love and Obstacles are about that coming of age and the complications-the obstacles-of growing up in a Communist but cosmopolitan country, and the disintegration of that country and the consequent uprooting and move to America in young adulthood. But because it's Aleksandar Hemon, the stories extend far beyond the immigrant experience; each one is punctuated with unexpected humor and spins out in fabulist, exhilarating directions, ultimately building to an insightful, often heartbreaking conclusion. Woven together, these stories comprise a book that is, genuinely, as cohesive and powerful as any fiction- achingly human, charming, and inviting.

Penguin Weekly Update, Authors, Events, Media, Tours, Penguin Books, Aleksandar Hemon, Love and Obstacles