Randall Kenan’s (1963–2020) last work of fiction, If I Had Two Wings, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Aspen Prize, and the National Book Award for Fiction. He was a professor of English and comparative literature at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill. Black Folk Could Fly: Selected Writings by Randall Kenan will be published in August 2022.
Daniel Kehlmann’s works have won the Candide Prize, the Hölderlin Prize, the Kleist Prize, the Welt Literature Prize, and the Thomas Mann Prize. He was a fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library in 2016–17. Measuring the World has been translated into more than forty languages.
Maulik Pancholy is an actor, author, and activist. He is best known for his television roles on 30 Rock, Weeds, Whitney, The Good Fight, and the long-running animated series Phineas & Ferb and Sanjay & Craig. On stage, he starred in It's Only a Play, Good for Otto, Grand Horizons, and most recently, The George Street Playhouse virtual production of Becky Mode’s Fully Committed. Pancholy’s debut novel, The Best at It, was named a 2020 Stonewall Honor Book, a Junior Library Guild Selection, and received starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, and the American Library Association’s Booklist. Pancholy is the co-founder of the anti-bullying organization ActToChange.org. Pancholy can currently be seen in Mira, Royal Detective and Only Murders in the Building.
BD Wong received all five major New York theatre awards – the Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Theatre World, and Clarence Derwent – for his Broadway debut in M. Butterfly. Additional theater credits include the Broadway revivals of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown and Pacific Overtures; and the Off-Broadway productions of The Great Leap, As Thousands Cheer, Shanghai Moon and A Language of Their Own. On screen, Wong has appeared in the films Father of the Bride, Mulan, Seven Years In Tibet, Bird Box, Jurassic Park, two Jurassic World films, All-American Girl, Oz, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Awake, Madam Secretary, Gotham, American Horror Story: Apocalypse, Mr. Robot, and most recently, Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens. Upcoming projects include Jurassic World: Dominion.
Jeffrey Wright is known for his performances on screen in Westworld, What If…?, Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, No Time to Die, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Mockingjay Parts 1 & 2, and Boardwalk Empire. Additional screen credits include Confirmation, Only Lovers Left Alive, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Oliver Stone’s W.; The Manchurian Candidate, and Basquiat, for which he earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination for his portrayal of the graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. He appeared on stage in Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, for which he earned a Tony Award, and reprised his role in HBO’s mini-series adaptation, earning Golden Globe and an Emmy awards. Upcoming projects include Asteroid City, Rustin, and The Batman.
CREDITS
“The Mathematician” by Daniel Kehlmann. From Measuring the World by Daniel Kehlman. Copyright © 2007 by Daniel Kehlmann. Translated from the German by Carol Brown Janeway. Translation copyright © 2007 by Carol Brown Janeway. Used by permission of Pantheon Books.
“Hobbits and Hobgoblins” by Randall Kenan. Collected in Writers’ Harvest (Harcourt Brace). Copyright © 1989 by Randall Kenan. Used by permission of The Wylie Agency, LLC.
