March 18, 2010
AMHERST, Mass. —Author Deanna Fei, a member of Amherst College’s Class of 1999, will read from her work at 8 p.m. on Monday, April 12, at Amherst Books (8 Main Street, Amherst, Mass.). Sponsored by the Amherst College Creative Writing Center, the event is open to the public at no charge.
Ann Patchett calls Fei “one to watch” and Anita Shreve calls Fei’s A Thread of Sky “a remarkable debut by a gifted young novelist.” Also of Thread, Alexander Chee writes, “Fei’s debut novel is both intensely enjoyable and, I think, important—this novel charts the cost of that famous Asian silence between generations, as a family takes in the price of it across several generations. But it is also an intimate portrait of that famous ‘new China,’ as much of a surprise to Chinese-Americans as it is to the rest of us. Truly a book for our times.”
Fei was born in Flushing, New York, and has lived in Beijing and Shanghai, China. In the years since she graduated from Amherst, she received a Fulbright grant, a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship and a Chinese cultural scholarship, among other awards. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, where she teaches in public schools and is at work on her second novel.
The Amherst College Creative Writing Center puts on a yearly reading series featuring both emerging and established authors. All events are wheelchair accessible and followed by refreshments. For more information, please call 413/542-8200.
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