Azar Nafisi Joins Winter Institute Keynote Roster

Photo credit: Stanley Staniski

The newest addition to the list of keynote presenters for the 10th anniversary of the Winter Institute is Azar Nafisi, author of the national bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, the winner of the 2004 Book Sense Book of the Year Award for nonfiction. Nafisi will present the keynote address “The Republic of Imagination,” based on her forthcoming book of the same name, from 8:30 a.m. to 9:45 a.m., on Wednesday, February 11, at breakfast in the Grand Ballroom of the Grove Park Inn.

Nafisi is a visiting professor and the executive director of Cultural Conversations at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. She is a professor of aesthetics, culture, and literature and teaches courses on the relation between culture and politics.

The Republic of Imagination: America in Three Books will be published by Viking in October 2015.

Previously announced Wi10 keynote speakers include:

• John Green is the award-winning author of a number of titles, including Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, Paper Towns, The Fault in Our Stars, and Will Grayson, Will Grayson (with David Levithan), published by Speak. Green and his brother, Hank, produce the Vlogbrothers YouTube videos, one of the most popular online video projects in the world.

  Green will present the keynote address “On We Go: Some Thoughts on the Last 10 Years and the Next 10” from 2:15 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. on Monday, February 9, in the Grand Ballroom.

• Steven Johnson is the bestselling author of nine books, including Future Perfect, Where Good Ideas Come From, The Invention of Air, The Ghost Map, and Everything Bad Is Good for You. His newest title is How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World (Riverhead Books). Johnson is the founder of a variety of influential websites and is the host and co-creator of the PBS and BBC series How We Got to Now.

  Johnson will present the keynote address from 8:15 a.m. to 9:40 a.m. on Monday, February 9, at breakfast in the Grand Ballroom.

• Sarah Lewis has served on President Obama’s Arts Policy Committee, been selected for Oprah’s “Power List,” and is a Critic at the Yale University School of Art in the M.F.A. program. She received her B.A. from Harvard University, an M.Phil. from Oxford University, and her Ph.D. from Yale University. She is the author of The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery (Simon & Schuster), which explores the value of failure and often-ignored ideas.

  Lewis will present the keynote address “The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery” from 8:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, February 10, at breakfast in the Grand Ballroom.

For the full Winter Institute schedule and session descriptions, visit the 2015 Winter Institute mini-site on BookWeb.org. The site is being updated on an ongoing basis and features a growing list of authors who will be appearing at Wi10.

Also watch for updates in Bookselling This Week and on the ABA Facebook page and follow the hashtag #Wi10 on Twitter.