Books Unlimited: Leni Zumas & Jennifer Clement

US writer Leni Zumas about her futuristic bestseller Red Clocks and US-Mexican writer Jennifer Clement about her latest novel Gun Love.

20181127145832 1

Information

Date and time Friday 18 January 2019 20:45 tot 21:45 uur
Location Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 2

Get to know literary stars and their recent books. Philosopher Simone van Saarloos talked to US writer Leni Zumas about her futuristic bestseller Red Clocks and to US-Mexican writer Jennifer Clement about her latest novel Gun Love. Expect to hear about their motivation to write, the creation of their characters and the worldwide success of their books.
In Red Clocks, Zumas sketches an intense portrait of four women. Their virtuostically told stories take place in an oppressive and all-too-imaginable future United States in which abortion, IVF and adoption is illegal for single women. The Guardian wrote about Gune Love: "Jennifer Clement's novel about a trailer park teen on a surreal journey across a gun-crazed land is superbly told."

Line-up

Leni Zumas

(USA, 1972) is the author of the story collection Farewell Navigator: Stories (2008) and the novel The Listeners (2012). Red Clocks, a book in the spirit of Margaret Atwood about four women living in an imaginary America where abortion is illegal, single mothers may not adopt, and there are further political regulations hostile to women. She has commented that the "frightening details of the misogynist world in which her story takes place are inspired by actual legislative proposals of men who at this moment have power in the government" (The Washington Post). Many are asking themselves when her fictional vision of the US will become reality. Besides writing, Zumas teaches writing at Oregon State University in Portland.
20181004152101 1

Simon(e) van Saarloos

is a writer, artistic collaborator and curator. They are the author of Against Ageism. A Queer Manifesto (2023); Take ‘Em Down. Scattered Monuments and Queer Forgetting (2021) and Playing Monogamy (2019) as well as several books in Dutch: Herdenken herdacht (2019); Enz. Het Wildersproces (2018); the novel De vrouw die (2016); the collection of columns Ik deug / deug niet ( 2015) and Het monogame drama (2015). . Van Saarloos works as an independent curator of public programming and artistic collaborations. A current PhD candidate in Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley, they are interested in Black feminist engagements with quantum physics and focused on the rhetorical (im)possibility of existence without defense. Van Saarloos is currently writing a new book for AK Press, titled Trans Despair: Staying Unrelated and Insecure.

Go the website of Simon(e) van Saarloos
Instagram: @svansaarloos
20260107150456 2

Jennifer Clement

(USA, 1960) is President of PEN International. She has authored five novels, including Prayers for the Stolen. It was a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice and appeared internationally on many book-of-the-year lists. In 2018, Gun Love was published, a topical novel about homelessness, the America love for weapons and the despair of people living on the edge of society. She has published various volumes of poetry, including The Next Stranger. Clement also wrote cult classic Widow Basquiat about painter and street artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and life in New York City in the early '80s. She is a member of the prestigious Mexican 'Sistema Nacional de Creadores' and received an NEA Fellowship, an award of the American National Endowment for the Arts.
20140910135452 1

Discover

20 May 2026

Get your 2027 tickets!

Get your Early Bird tickets for the big festival nights, Friday & Saturday Night Unlimited!