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Josh Barkan will read from his new memoir, Wonder Travels. "In this compulsively readable memoir, Josh Barkan does something remarkable: he combines the edifying power of the travelogue with the emotional truth-seeking promise of the memoir, taking us through the streets of New York to the wilds of Mexico, through Madrid and Marrakesh and the mountains of Morocco, through the piazzas of Rome then back to Mexico, all from the point of view of a man trying to stitch back together his shattered heart. Wonder Travels is a profound meditation on the inherent fragility of marriage, on what it means to love well and to be loved in return, on the elusiveness of forgiveness, but ultimately on spiritual resilience and wandering's potential ability to truly heal. This is a brave, thought-provoking, and moving memoir, and I recommend it highly." —Andre Dubus III

Josh Barkan is a Writers' Workshop alum and Iowa City native. He won the Lightship International Short Story Prize and was runner-up for the Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction, the Paterson Fiction Prize, and the Juniper Prize for Fiction. He is the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and his writing has appeared in Esquire. He has taught creative writing at Harvard, NYU, the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, Hollins University and MIT. His books include the novel Blind Speed and short story collections Before Hiroshima and Mexico (Hogarth/Penguin Random House)—selected as one of the five best story collections of 2017 by Library Journal. His work has been translated into Spanish and French. He lives in Boston.

Barkan will be joined in conversation by Andre Dubus III. Dubus III is also a former Iowa Citian, and the author of Such Kindness and eight other books, including the bestsellers Townie, a memoir, and House of Sand and Fog, a National Book Award Finalist in Fiction and an Oprah's Book Club selection. He lives in Newburyport, Mass.

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