HOUSTON, TEXAS — Inprint, Houston’s premier literary arts nonprofit organization, presents a virtual event with Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk live from Poland on Sunday, February 27, 3 pm CT, as part of the 2021/2022 Inprint Margarett Root Brown Reading Series. Acclaimed translator Jennifer Croft will give a brief reading from Tokarczuk’s magnum opus The Books of Jacob, “a visionary work that will undoubtedly be read and talked about by lovers of literature for years to come” (Publisher’s Weekly, starred review). The program will also include a conversation with Tokarczuk, Croft, and former Houston Poet Laureate Robin Davidson. This event will be accessible via the Inprint ‘virtual studio’—$5 general admission tickets are on sale now at inprinthouston.org. Discounted books are available to Inprint patrons for purchase through Brazos Bookstore. For more information, visit inprinthouston.org or call 713.521.2026. The event will be followed by a conversation with Jennifer Croft (Polish translator and recipient of the Booker International Prize) and Robin Davidson (Polish poetry scholar and former Houston Poet Laureate). 

“We feel very fortunate to be able to present the remarkable author Olga Tokarczuk as part of this year’s Inprint Brown Reading Series,” says Inprint Executive Director Rich Levy. “What an honor! This is one of only five such Tokarczuk events in the United States, and the Inprint ‘virtual studio’ will make it accessible worldwide.”

In 2018, Olga Tokarczuk was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature and praised by the selection committee for “a narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life.” A bestselling author in her home country of Poland whose work has been translated into more than 50 languages, Tokarczuk has published nine novels, two story collections, five nonfiction works, a collection of poetry, and a children’s book.

Tokarczuk joins us to read from and talk about her magnum opus The Books of Jacob, which has been called “a decade-defining book” (AV Club), “a literary miracle” (The Times), and “a massive achievement” (Kirkus, starred review). A journey across seven borders, five languages, and three major religions, the book revolves around the controversial 18th century Polish-Jewish religious leader Jacob Frank. After its publication in 2014, The Books of Jacob was a national bestseller for nearly a year and recipient of the Nike Prize (Poland’s most prestigious literary award), the Nike Audience Award, the Kulturhuset Stadsteatern International Literary Prize, and the Swiss Jan Michalski Prize. According to Oprah Daily, “Tokarczuk aims high, spinning a layered, majestic, polyphonic novel based on a real-life figure… A golden age of historical fiction is upon us: Tokarczuk links arms with Hilary Mantel and Colson Whitehead, connecting our own perilous moment with the past.” The New York Times adds, “Sophisticated and ribald and brimming with folk wit… The comedy in this novel blends, as it does in life, with genuine tragedy.

Tokarczuk rose to international acclaim after her seventh novel, Flights, won the Booker International Prize and the Nike Prize. About the book, Marlon James writes, “Flights works like a dream does: with fragmentary trails that add up to a delightful reimagining of the novel itself.” Her eighth novel, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, earned nominations for the Booker International Prize, National Book Award for Translated Literature, and PEN/America Translation Prize. According to Annie Proulx, “Tokarczuk’s novel is funny, vivid, dangerous, and disturbing, and it raises some fierce questions about human behavior. My sincere admiration for her brilliant work.”

The series is presented by Inprint, a Houston-based nonprofit literary arts organization dedicated to inspiring readers and writers. Since 1980, the Inprint Margarett Root Brown Reading Series has featured nearly 400 of the world’s great writers from 37 countries, including winners of 12 Nobel Prizes, 64 Pulitzer Prizes, 57 National Book Awards, 51 National Book Critics Circle Awards, and 16 Booker Prizes, as well as 19 U.S. Poets Laureate. The series and Inprint receive generous support from The Brown Foundation, Inc., The Jerry C. Dearing Family Foundation, Houston Endowment, the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance, and the Texas Commission on the Arts. The series is presented in association with Brazos Bookstore and University of Houston Creative Writing Program.