Literary Death Match

Adrian Todd Zuniga, Jaquira Díaz, Etgar Keret, Thea Lim, Roger Robinson, Sophia Benoit and Mohanad Elshieky

8:30pm

Saturday, October 23

Experience text off the page like never before, as the internationally acclaimed Literary Death Match brings its circus to TIFA. A thrilling mix of international authors will compete with performances of their most electric writing to reach a unique comic, literary finale! It’s the writing world’s American Idol (without the meanness). This event, hosted by Adrian Todd Zuniga, features a dazzling array of readers with Puerto Rico’s Jaquira Diaz, Israel’s Etgar Keret, Singaporean Canadian Thea Lim and 2019 TS Eliot prize-winner Roger Robinson. The judges are comedian and columnist Sophia Benoit, podcaster and comedian Mohanad Elshieky; and Nikesh Shukla, author and editor of The Good Immigrant.

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Panel Discussion

Reading

Experience text off the page like never before, as the internationally acclaimed Literary Death Match brings its circus to TIFA. A thrilling mix of international authors will compete with performances of their most electric writing to reach a unique comic, literary finale! It’s the writing world’s American Idol (without the meanness). This event, hosted by Adrian Todd Zuniga, features a dazzling array of readers with Puerto Rico’s Jaquira Diaz, Israel’s Etgar Keret, Singaporean Canadian Thea Lim and 2019 TS Eliot prize-winner Roger Robinson. The judges are comedian and columnist Sophia Benoit, podcaster and comedian Mohanad Elshieky; and Nikesh Shukla, author and editor of The Good Immigrant.

English captioning is available for this video. Please click the ‘CC’ button in the video toolbar to turn it on.

Panel Discussion

Reading

Featured Authors

Adrian Todd Zuniga

Adrian Todd Zuniga is the author of the debut novel, Collision Theory (Rare Bird Books, 2018), a Foreword Indies Finalist for Fiction and a St. Louis Post-Dispatch best-seller. He's the host and creator of Literary Death Match, now featured in over 60 cities worldwide, and host of LDM Book Report on YouTube. A WGA Award-nominated screenwriter, he co-wrote Madden NFL 18’s interactive movie LONGSHOT and the sequel LONGSHOT: Homecoming (EA Sports). He lives in between Los Angeles and London.

Read more about Adrian Todd Zuniga

Jaquira Díaz is the author of Ordinary Girls, winner of a Whiting Award in Nonfiction; a Florida Book Awards Gold Medal; and a 2020 Lambda Finalist.

Read more about Jaquira Díaz

Etgar Keret, born in Ramat Gan in 1967, is a leading voice in Israeli literature and cinema. His writing has been published in The New York Times, Le Monde, The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Paris Review and Zoetrope. Keret resides in Tel Aviv and lectures at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev as a Full professor. He has received the Book Publishers Association's Platinum Prize several times, the St. Petersburg Public Library's Foreign Favorite Award and the Newman Prize. In 2010, Keret was honored in France with the decoration of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Read more about Etgar Keret

Thea Lim is the author of An Ocean of Minutes, which was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Her writing has been published in Granta, The Nation, The Paris Review, Best Canadian Stories, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, Guernica, and others. She also works as a book critic, as a story consultant for film and television, as a creative writing instructor at many schools including the University of Toronto, Diaspora Dialogues, and the University of Guelph. She grew up in Singapore and now lives with her family in Toronto.

Read more about Thea Lim

Roger Robinson, educator and author of the poetry collection A Portable Paradise, winner of the T.S. Eliot Poetry Prize 2019 and the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize 2020.

Read more about Roger Robinson

Sophia Benoit, comedian and author of Well, This is Exhausting, along with writing sex and relationship advice for GQ and an advice newsletter on Substack called Here's The Thing.

Read more about Sophia Benoit

Mohanad Elshieky

Mohanad Elshieky, a NYC-based stand-up comedian who made his national TV debut on Conan, and is now co-host of the I'm Sorry podcast.

Read more about Mohanad Elshieky