Constructing a Mythology & Illuminating Fragments of the Past

An abandoned Old West town and an ancient Greek epic provide the settings for two novels that turn buried histories into urgent personal questions. Téa Obreht and Yann Martel discuss their latest work Saturday, November 21 at the Miami Dade College Wolfson Campus auditorium in downtown Miami, as part of Miami Book Fair.

In Obreht’s Sunrise, a woman survives a plane crash in the Wyoming mountains, only to discover that her pilot boyfriend has vanished. Seeking shelter, she encounters a seemingly deserted town whose carefully preserved appearance conceals unsettling secrets. Obreht’s debut, The Tiger’s Wife, won the Orange Prize for Fiction and was a National Book Award finalist. Her other novels include Inland and The Morningside.

Martel’s Son of Nobody follows a Canadian scholar translating the Psoad, a fictional Greek epic about a goatherd’s son who leaves his family to fight at Troy. Across nearly three millennia, the ancient narrative begins to intersect with the translator’s own life, connecting questions of love, ambition and grief. Martel won the 2002 Booker Prize for Life of Pi, later adapted into Ang Lee’s Oscar-winning film.

Clay Smith, literary director of the San Antonio Book Festival, moderates. The session takes place in Building 1, second floor, Room 1261.