Author: Monica Macansantos in conversation with Susanne Pari

Author Monica Macansantos and local author Susanne Pari will be in conversation about Macansantos' new book, Returning to My Father's Kitchen: Essays, in which Macansantos recounts her family history, exile, and her relationship with her late poet father. 

Monica Macansantos is the author of Returning to My Father's Kitchen: Essays, out from Curbstone/Northwestern University Press, and Love and Other Rituals: Selected Stories. A 2024-25 Shearing Fellow with the Black Mountain Institute in Las Vegas, her work has appeared in Colorado Review, The Hopkins Review, Bennington Review, and River Styx, among other publications. A former James A. Michener Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin, she has held residencies at Hedgebrook, the KHN Center for the Arts, I-Park Foundation, Storyknife Writers Retreat, and Monson Arts.

Susanne Pari is a novelist, book reviewer, essayist, and interviewer. Her most recent novel, In the Time of Our History, examines the entangled lives of an Iranian American family grappling with generational culture clashes and the rebellion of its women. It was an IndieNext Pick, a Target Book Club Pick, a 2023 Women’s National Book Association Group Reads Selection, a Book Browse 2023 Best Books Selection, and a Hoopla Spotlight Selection. Her first novel, The Fortune Catcher, about the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution, was first published in 1997 and translated into six languages. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The San Francisco Chronicle, and NPR. She is a member of the National Book Critics Circle, PEN America, the Author's Guild, and the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto. She divides her time between Northern California and New York.

Connect:

Monica Macansantos - Website

Susanne Pari - Website