Katie Kitamura

Against the backdrop of her acclaimed new novel Audition, Katie Kitamura reflects the questions that run through all of her work: identity and performance, intimacy and estrangement, memory and imagination. How do we construct the stories we tell about ourselves and others? And what happens when those narratives begin to unravel? In conversation with Uzodinma Iweala, Katie Kitamura explores fiction’s unique power to embrace ambiguity rather than resolve it. An evening about the lives we live – and the ones we imagine.

Katie Kitamura is the author of five novels, including Audition, Intimacies, and A Separation. Audition was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, while Intimacies was named one of The New York Times‘ 10 Best Books of 2021. Her work has been translated into more than twenty languages. In 2026, Kitamura is a Berlin Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin.

Uzodinma Iweala is an award-winning writer and medical doctor. The author of Beasts of No Nation, Our Kind of People, and Speak No Evil has recently completed his essay collection United States of Ambivalence. Iweala lives in Heidelberg and is a fellow at Heidelberg University’s Käte Hamburger Centre for Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Studies.

Language: English

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