"I'm going to tell you a lot of love stories today," Yiyun Li said to begin her Two Voices event on the masterful Chinese writer Shen Congwen. Although little-known in the U.S., Congwen has been a hugely influential author on Li--as she declared during the event, Congwen's letters were one of the three books she brought with her when she emigrated from China to the United States in 1996.

Hear Cuban author Jose Manuel Prieto and translator Esther Allen speak about Rex, translation, Proust, and many other topics. Prieto and Allen appeared as part of the Center for the Art of Translation's Lit&Lunch series.

In his Two Voices presentation on May 8, lauded Argentine author Sergio Chejfec started by explaining the biographical roots of his strange, compelling novel The Planets. The book is about an Argentine who goes missing during the military dictatorship of 1976-82, and Chejfec began by explaining that the plot of the book actually has to do with a friend of his who did disappear during the military dictatorship for the 1970s. He was one of an estimated 30,000 Argentines to disappear during that span.