Mills College Three for Three

Daniel Alarcon, visiting scholar and teacher at Mills College, has a short story in the New Yorker this week.

Add that to the Whiting awards given to Yiyun Lee and Micheline Aharonian Marcom, and my writing program just scored three for three. Daniel Alarcon shouldn't be feeling left out of the awards department, since he got a Whiting Award two years ago...

For my Lebanese readers - you really ought to read all three of these authors. Miss Marcom's second novel, Daydreaming Boy, is set in Beirut from the 1920s to the 1980s, and follows the life of an Armenian orphan boy who grows up to be a very troubled man. Her prose is lyrical and moving. Mr. Alarcon, author of War by Candlelight, writes with passion of city life in Peru - you'll love his energy. Miss Lee's characters in A Thousand Years of Good Prayers move between modern day China and America, negotiating the strange passages of the immigrant and those left behind in a rapidly evolving world. All of these books will resonate for Lebanese and other Arab world readers.

Personal note: Miss Lee is my adviser this year. Mr. Alarcon has kindly agreed to read my thesis, which will be under the direction of Miss Marcom. I am one lucky graduate student...

Comments

[Ron Sullivan]

Oh my. More books for the list! That looks like a great program too, and you deserve it.

Congratulations to your mentors, and to you too.

[Leila]

Yeah, my professor friend says "powerful committee!" Now I have to write something good enough to show this crew...