For the sixth year, New York City will host the PEN World Voices Festival, this year April 26 – May 2. Featured will be over 130 writers from over forty countries (see www.pen.org). We are pleased to be able to help present this Elliott Bay reading by three featured writers at this year's festival—part of a PEN and publisher initiative to get more of this richness around the US. Coming here will be two highly regarded fiction writers: each known in their countries and beyond, each with multiple books published (although each is traveling here on behalf of a first book published in the US), and each the recipient of major literary awards. A special treat tonight is that SHERMAN ALEXIE is expected to help host the reading. He will himself be going to New York to participate in the PEN World Voices Festival, as is he to give its keynote address. Here from Melbourne is Australian novelist, playwright and essayist CHRISTOS TSIOLKAS. The Slap (Penguin), which received the Commonwealth Writers Prize, is the first of his four novels to be published in the US. "A controversial and daring novel, The Slap uses the iconic scene of a suburban Australian barbecue to examine identities and personal relationships in a multicultural society ... This book is sure to challenge readers and provoke debate." – Committee for the Commonwealth Prize. Dutch novelist TOMMY WIERINGA visits with his most recent novel, Joe Speedboat (Grove/Black Cat, translated by Sam Garrett). One of his two earlier novels received Holland's Halewijn Prize. Joe Speedboat is a vivid variation on the coming-of-age novel, the story of what happens to a slumbering small town when a highly charged young man arrives, seemingly out of nowhere. "A sparkling bildungsroman ... that recalls The World According to Garp." – NRC Handelsblad (Holland). This should be a very special evening. Please join us. Special thanks to PEN, Grove Atlantic, and Penguin Books for their part in making this visit possible. This evening at Elliott Bay is free-of-charge. These two authors also read (without Sherman) at the the Bellevue Regional Library on April 22. PLEASE NOTE: We regret that SOFI OKSANEN who was scheduled to appear at this event has had to cancel due to cancelled flights out of Europe.