Join us for a reading with author Sofia Samatar, who will read from her new science fiction novel, The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain. A conversation with author Alix E. Harrow will follow. This in-person event will be free and open to the public. We recommend arriving early for the best seating.
About the Book: The boy was raised as one of the Chained, condemned to toil in the bowels of a mining ship out among the stars. His whole world changes—literally—when he is yanked “upstairs” and informed he has been given an opportunity to be educated at the ship’s university alongside the elite.
Overwhelmed and alone, the boy forms a bond with the woman he comes to know as “the professor,” a weary idealist and descendent of the Chained who has spent her career striving for validation from her more senior colleagues, only to fall short at every turn.
Together, the boy and the woman will embark on a transformative journey to grasp the design of the chains that fetter them both—and are the key to breaking free.
About the Author: Sofia Samatar is a writer of fiction and nonfiction, including the World Fantasy Award–winning novel A Stranger in Olondria. Her works range from the memoir The White Mosque, a PEN/Jean Stein Award finalist, to Monster Portraits, an exploration of monsters in collaboration with her brother, the artist Del Samatar. Sofia Samatar is Roop Distinguished Professor of English at James Madison University, where she teaches African literature, Arabic literature, and speculative fiction.
About the Moderator: Alix E. Harrow is the New York Times–bestselling and Hugo Award–winning author of The Ten Thousand Doors of January, The Once and Future Witches, Starling House, and various short fiction. A former adjunct and Kentuckian, Harrow now lives in Virginia with her husband and their two semi-feral kids.
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain will be released on April 16. To order the book, please see below for the New Dominion Bookshop book order form or call the shop at 434-295-2552.
"I am in love with Sofia Samatar's lyricism and the haunting beauty of her imagination. Her stories linger, like the memory of a sumptuous feast."
—N. K. Jemisin
New Dominion Bookshop Book Order Form
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Alix E. Harrow Photo Credit: Elora Overbey