“Our Country Friends” with Gary Shteyngart and Alex Halberstadt

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Our Country Friends was an instant  New York Times bestseller and was named one of the best books of the year by the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Time Magazine, Kirkus Review, and others.  New York Times critic Molly Young called it “the perfect novel for these times and all times, the single textual artifact from the pandemic era I would place in a time capsule as a representation of all that is good and true and beautiful about literature. I hope the extraterrestrials who exhume it will agree.” Gary Shteyngart joins Alex Halberstadt to discuss the book and their journeys as Soviet-born Americans.   

Gary Shteyngart is the New York Times bestselling author of the memoir Little Failure and the novels Super Sad True Love Story, Lake Success, Absurdistan, and The Russian Debutante’s Handbook. His books regularly appear on best-of lists around the world and have been published in thirty countries.

Alex Halberstadt is the author of the family memoir Young Heroes of the Soviet Union, a New York Times Critics’ Top Book of 2020, as well as Lonely Avenue: the Unlikely Life and Times of Doc Pomus. He is a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, and his writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, Saveur, Travel + Leisure, GQ, Food & Wine, MoMA Magazine and The Paris Review. Nominated twice for the James Beard Award for Excellence in Journalism, his essays have been anthologized in Best Food Writing 2014 and The Best American Food Writing 2018.  

Photo Credit: Gary Shteyngart © Brigitte Lacombe. 

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