Katie Kitamura, the acclaimed author and professor of creative writing at New York University, will be in Greece for two special events with readers, in collaboration with the Hellenic-American Union.

She will be in Athens on Wednesday, June 24, at the Hellenic-American Union auditorium at 7:00 p.m. Journalist Giorgos Nastos will be in conversation with the author. Actress Evgenia Dimitropoulou will read excerpts from the book. The discussion will be followed by a Q&A session and a book signing. Simultaneous interpretation into Greek will be provided.

The author will then head to the Chania Book Festival, where she will speak with journalist Eleonora Orfanidou on Thursday at 9:00 p.m. at the Mikis Theodorakis Arsenal (Hall 1). The discussion will be followed by a Q&A session and a book signing. Simultaneous interpretation into Greek will be provided.

Katie Kitamura’s novel Audition is a much-discussed work that combines elements of family drama and psychological thriller, transcending the conventional boundaries of literary genres, and has garnered significant accolades as well as nominations for top literary awards. It was included in the list of the top 10 books of the year by TIME Magazine and Publishers Weekly, named best book of the year by The Washington Post, The New Yorker, NPR, The New York Public Library, Vogue, TIME Magazine, The Guardian, Kirkus, and other media outlets, was one of Barack Obama’s favorite books of the year, and was nominated for numerous awards:

More specifically:  

• Shortlisted: 2025 Booker Prize
• Finalist: 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
• Finalist: National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction 
• Finalist: Joyce Carol Oates Prize 
• Finalist: Gotham Book Prize 
• Longlist: Women’s Prize 
• Longlist: Carol Shields Prize for Fiction 

Synopsis: 

An acclaimed actress meets a younger man for dinner in Manhattan. Is he her son? Her lover? Can a story ever have just one interpretation? A riveting book, one of the most talked-about of the year, about the power and fluidity of the roles we are called upon to play in our lives. A story that invites us to rethink our expectations and realize that things are almost never what they seem.

About author: 

Katie Kitamura is a graduate of Princeton University and holds a Ph.D. in American literature from the London Consortium. She is the author of five novels. Intimacies was selected as one of the 10 best books of 2021 by The New York Times, was a finalist for the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, and a finalist for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize. It was also one of Barack Obama’s favorite books of 2021. Her works have been translated into more than twenty languages and adapted for film and television. She has been awarded the Rome Prize in Literature, as well as fellowships from the Lannan, Santa Maddalena, and Jan Michalski foundations. She writes for the New York Times Book Review, the Guardian, Granta, Frieze, and others, and teaches in the creative writing program at New York University. Her fifth novel, Audition, was shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize.