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Please join us for a reading and conversation with Andrea Bajani to celebrate the release of If You Kept a Record of Sins. He will be joined in conversation with poet and memoirist Nick Flynn.

Anderson Tepper, The New York Times calls If You Kept a Record of Sins, "A slim, astonishing book . . . Bajani etches an impressionistic portrait of a young man — like the foreign city outside his window — trapped in a shadow land between past and present.” Kirkus Reviews (starred review) says, “After years of gradually widening distance between them, a man learns some truths about his absent mother when he travels abroad to bury her and settle her business affairs…Bajani’s spare prose delivers startling imagery…as well as quiet reflection as Lorenzo addresses the departed Lula as he moves around her chosen home away from home….Bajani’s lovely, quiet novel lives at the intersection of love and misunderstanding.”

Andrea Bajani is one of the most respected novelists of contemporary Italian literature. His novel, Ogni promess ( Every Promise), won the prestigious Bagutta Prize. Se consideri le colpe ( If You Kept a Record of Sins) won the Super Mondello Prize, the Brancati Prize, the Recanati Prize, and the Lo Straniero Prize. His latest novel, Un bene al mondo, is currently being turned into a film. Bajani is also a journalist, and he published his first book of poetry, Promemoria, in 2017. He teaches at Rice University in the Department of Classical and European studies.

Nick Flynn has worked as a ship's captain, an electrician, and as a case-worker with homeless adults. He is the author of twelve books, including the New York Times best-selling memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City. His most recent book is This Is the Night Our House Will Catch Fire: A Memoir. His work has been translated into fifteen languages. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and NPR's This American Life, among others.