Marian Palaia on Her Novel, "The Given World"

Writer Marian Palaia talks about her new novel THE GIVEN WORLD, which has received rave reviews from the likes of Lorrie Moore, Karen Joy Fowler, Robert Olen Butler.
Spanning twenty-five years, THE GIVEN WORLD moves from Montana to Saigon as it tells the story of a young woman whose life is haunted by her brother's disappearance in Vietnam. Palaia, a first time author at sixty, begins the break in our society created by the Vietnam War and works her way deep into the aftermath -- its impact on one person, on one family, on one country. 

Marian Palaia reads from THE GIVEN WORLD Thursday, April 16th, at Powell's on Hawthorne. 

Marian Palaia was born in Riverside, California, and grew up there and in Washington, DC. She lives in San Francisco and has also lived in Montana, Hong Kong, Ho Chi Minh City, and Nepal, where she was a Peace Corps volunteer. She is a graduate of the MFA program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she received the 212 Milofsky Prize. She was a 2012-2013 John Steinbeck Fellow at San Jose State University and is a recipient of the Elizabeth George Foundation Fellowship. Her work has been published in The Virginia Quarterly Review and TriQuareterly. Marian has also been a truck driver, a bartender, and a logger.