2010 National Book Festival Podcast

Ken Follett is one of the best-selling novelists in the world, having sold more than 100 million copies of his books. He became an instant sensation with his first novel, 1978’s “Eye of the Needle,” which later became a successful film. Since then, Follett has continued to captivate millions of readers with his taut, suspenseful thrillers. His current project is his most ambitious yet: The Century Trilogy will relate the history of the 20th century, as seen through the eyes of five linked families: one American, one English, one German, one Russian and one Welsh. The first book, “Fall of Giants” (Penguin), focuses on World War I and the Russian Revolution. Follett is already at work on the second book in the series, provisionally titled “The Winter of the World,” about the Spanish Civil War, World War II and the development of nuclear weapons. Follett lives in England.

Jane Smiley is the author of several critically acclaimed and popular novels, including “The Age of God,” “The Greenlanders,” “Ordinary Love and Good Will,” “A Thousand Acres” (winner of the 1992 Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award), “Horse Heaven,” “Good Faith” and the new young-adult novel “The Georges and the Jewels” (Knopf). She has also written for The New Yorker, Horseman, Harper’s, The Nation and others. In 2001 she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and in 2006 received the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award for Literature. She was a fellow of the National Endowment for the Arts in 1978 and 1987. Smiley’s new novel for adults is “Private Life” (Knopf). She lives in California.

Anchee Min was born in Shanghai during the rule of communist leader Mao Zedong. She was chosen to become a leader of the Little Red Guards, a group of elementary school children who supported Mao’s ideas. At the age of 17, she was sent to a labor camp, where she discovered the truth about the Chinese leader. After suffering a severe spinal cord injury, eventually, in 1984, she left China for America. She spoke no English when she arrived in Chicago, but within six months had taught herself the language in part by watching “Sesame Street” and “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.” Her books have been praised for their raw, sharp language and historical accuracy. They include “Becoming Madame Mao,” “The Last Empress” and her current novel, “Pearl of China” (Bloomsbury), which tells the story of Nobel Prize winner Pearl S. Buck. As a teenager Min had been taught to denounce Buck as an American cultural imperialist.

Judith Viorst is the author of several works of fiction and nonfiction for children as well as adults. “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day,” her most famous children's book, was first published in 1972 and has since sold more than 2 million copies. Viorst received a B.A. in history from Rutgers University, and she is also a graduate of the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute, where she is a research affiliate. She began her career as a poet and has since completed six collections of poems for adults. Her first novel for adults, “Murdering Mr. Monti,” was published in 1994, and her nonfiction book “Imperfect Control,” was published in January 1998. Viorst's children’s books include “The Tenth Good Thing About Barney,” “The Alphabet From Z to A” and the “Alexander” stories, including “Alexander, Who Used to Be Rich Last Sunday.” Her recent work is “Lulu and the Brontosaurus” (Simon and Schuster Children’s Publishing). She lives in Washington, D.C.

Isabel Allende is a best-selling Chilean-American writer who was born in Lima, where her father, Tomás Allende, was Chile’s ambassador to Peru. Her uncle was Chilean President Salvador Allende, who was assassinated in 1973 during a military coup. Believing it was unsafe to remain in Chile, Isabel, her husband and two children fled to Venezuela. While in exile, she wrote her first novel, “The House of the Spirits,” which was made into a film in 1994. Isabel Allende’s works weave elements of magical-realism into her stories of women and their struggles. Since then, Allende has written many novels and other works, such as plays and children’s stories. Her most recent novel is “The Island Beneath the Sea” (HarperCollins). Allende will receive this year’s Library of Congress National Book Festival Creative Achievement Award.

A literacy advocate excited about sharing what she calls “bookjoy,” Pat Mora founded the family literacy initiative El día de los niños/El día de los libros, Children's Day/Book Day, now housed at the American Library Association. The yearlong commitment to daily linking all children to books, languages and cultures culminates in celebrations across the country on or near April 30. Her book titled “Book Fiesta! Celebrate Children’s Day/Book Day; Celebremos el Día de los Niños/El Día de los Libros,” (HarperCollins), promotes the Día spirit. Mora’s haiku collection about foods of the Americas, “Yum! ¡Mmm! ¡Qué Rico!, won the Américas Award and was an ALA Notable book. “Doña Flor: A Tall Tale About a Giant Woman with a Great Big Heart” was also an ALA Notable book that received a Pura Belpré Author Honor Award and a Golden Kite Award from the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. Mora lives in New Mexico.

Rae Armantrout is the 2010 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry for “Versed” (Wesleyan Poetry Press), which the Pulitzer committee cited as “a book striking for its wit and linguistic inventiveness, offering poems that are often little thought-bombs detonating in the mind long after the first reading.” The National Endowment for the Arts has funded publication of her work. Armantrout published her first book of poems, “Extremities,” in 1978. She is active in Southern California’s literary community and her other books include “The Invention of Hunger,” “Precedence,” “Necromance,” “Made to Seem,” “The Pretext” and “Veil: New and Selected Poems.” Poet Robert Creeley has said her work possesses a “clarity of syntax” that features “the calm solidness of words.” Armantrout lives in California.