Saturday University Sacred Sites of Asia Lecture Series, presented by the GARDNER CENTER FOR ASIAN ART AND IDEAS, cosponsored by UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON JACKSON SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES and ELLIOTT BAY BOOK COMPANY. A major figure in contemporary Indian life and letters, Gurcharan Das is here from New Delhi, a special guest in the Gardner Center's Saturday University series. Author of numerous books, including India Unbound, a novel, essays, plays, and more; a regular columnist for The Times of India and other Indian papers; and a former CEO of Proctor & Gamble India, he visits to discuss themes raised in his newest book, The Difficulty of Being Good: On the Subtle Art of Dharma (Oxford University Press). This learned, engaging book—with a personal stake in the writing and exploring—uses the great Indian epic, the Mahabharata, as a way to examine how to live a life that's true to one's self and the civic life of society. Free, with museum admission (or membership). The Seattle Asian Art Museum is at 1400 E. Prospect in Volunteer Park. For more information, please see www.seattleartmuseum.org.

As part of a visit highlighted by a Town Hall appearance on the evening before today's event (see listing for Friday, October 15th), Edwidge Danticat will also make this Saturday afternoon appearance at Elliott Bay—for those wanting to continue the conversations started Friday night, as well as those who couldn’t attend (a lot is going on in Seattle that Friday evening). She is visiting Seattle with a book of essays drawn from the Toni Morrison Lectures she gave earlier this year at Princeton, Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work (Princeton University Press). This is the newest volume in a remarkable body of work that includes two novels, two books of stories, two young adult books, and two other nonfiction books. Her most recent book, the autobiographical, Brother, I'm Dying, was a National Book Award finalist and received the National Book Critics Circle Award. Create Dangerously is a beautiful rumination on what role immigrant artists can and do play, and a powerful exploration of her deep connections to her homeland of Haiti, especially with the devastating earthquake which struck earlier this year. At Town Hall or here, this is one of those vital writers not to be missed.