Join us for a reading with writer Wajahat Ali (Go Back to Where You Came From) and poet Fernando Valverde (America). This in-person event will be free and open to the public. We recommend arriving early for the best seating.
Wajahat Ali is a New York Times–contributing writer, recovering attorney, and tired dad. His first book, Go Back To Where You Came From: And, Other Helpful Recommendations on Becoming American, was published in January 2022 by Norton. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Review of Books, and other outlets. He is currently a Western States Center senior fellow for the Common Good Program & Leadership Initiative to Combat Antisemitism and a senior fellow at Auburn Seminary. He lives in Washington, DC.
Fernando Valverde is one of the preeminent poets writing in the Spanish language today, and he has received international acclaim for his contributions to the art of poetry. Before coming to the US, Valverde served as a foreign correspondent for Spain’s major paper, El Pais, covering war zones in the Balkans and the Middle East. In 2014, his book The Insistence of Harm received the Book of the Year award from the Latino American Writers Institute at CUNY. His most recent bilingual book, America, was translated by poet Carolyn Forché and published by Copper Canyon Press. In Spanish, Desgracia (Visor) is his most recent book. He has been the director of the International Festival of Poetry in Granada, and he is currently teaching poetry at the University of Virginia.