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SpeakerRank
- #18 in Novelists
- #52 in Community Improvement
- #55 in Award winning novelist
- #66 in Historical Fiction Authors
- #68 in Islam
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Amy Waldman's first novel, The Submission, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2011. It tells the story of an anonymous competition to design a 9/11 memorial -- and of the American Muslim who wins it. An acclaimed bestseller, it was a New York Times Editors' Choice, an Amazon Editors' Fall Pick, one of Barnes & Noble's Best Books of 2011 and one of the New York Times Review's 100 Notable Books of 2011.
USA Today called it "An emotionally and politically rich novel . . . The Submission raises wrenching post-9/11 questions about what it means to be an American . . . [Waldman's] novel transcends ideological politics."
Amy was a reporter for The New York Times from 1997 through 2005, including three years as co-chief of the New Delhi bureau. She has reported extensively in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, as well as in Iran, Iraq, and in Muslim communities in Great Britain, the former Soviet Union, and elsewhere. Her series on India's national highways won an Overseas Press Club award. From 2006 to 2008 she was a national correspondent for the Atlantic.
Her fiction has appeared in the Boston Review and the Atlantic and was anthologized in The Best American Non-Required Reading 2010.
She also has been a fellow at the American Academy in Berlin and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She grew up in Los Angeles and is a graduate of Yale University.
Speech Topics
Islam in Fact and Fiction
Ten years after 9/11, Islam continues to provoke anxiety, even fear, among many Americans. What can four years of reporting in Muslim countries and communities, from Afghanistan to small towns in Britain, tell us about how to think about it? How do we understand the danger to America; how, given all the talk about the clash between Islam and the West, do we think about Muslims in America? And why explore any of these questions through fiction rather than fact?
Called "The Bonfire of the Vanities of our time" by Booklist, Amy's book, The Submission, has sparked a nationwide dialogue on the legacy of 9/11, how art, religion and politics intersect and what it means to be an American.
As both a journalist who has covered global issues for The New York Times and the Atlantic, and as a bestselling fiction author whose subjects are as fascinating as any headline, Amy Waldman brings the best of both worlds to audiences nationwide.
News
"The Submission" is the February selection for the MLive Book Club. We'll be discussing the novel this Thursday, Feb. 28, at 5:30 p.m. in advance of Waldman's ...
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