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An Evening with Joan Didion

In conversation with David L. Ulin
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
01:12:45
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Episode Summary
A literary icon for Los Angeles and a cultural visionary for the rest of America, the acclaimed author of The White Album, The Year of Magical Thinking, and most recently, Blue Nights, discusses her current work and life in Los Angeles in the 60s.

Part of Pacific Standard Time: Art in LA 1945-1980

Participant(s) Bio
California-born novelist and essayist, Joan Didion's work explores disorder and personal and social unrest. Her novels include Play It as It Lays, A Book of Common Prayer, Democracy, and The Last Thing He Wanted. Her essay collections Slouching Towards Bethlehem and The White Album are perceptive, clear-eyed analyses of American culture. With her husband, John Gregory Dunne, she wrote a number of screenplays, including A Star Is Born. Her later works of nonfiction include Political Fictions, Where I Was From, The Year of Magical Thinking, and the most recent Blue Nights.

David L. Ulin is a book critic for the Los Angeles Times. From 2005-2010 he served as the Times' book editor. He is the author of The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time and The Myth of Solid Ground: Earthquakes, Prediction, and the Fault Line Between Reason and Faith,, and the editor of Another City: Writing from Los Angeles and Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology, which won a 2002 California Book Award. His essays and criticism are widely published.


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