There are very few tickets currently available for this event. Check with the box office for updates at (805) 893-3535
SUMMARY
- Tuesday, March 14 | 7:30 p.m. | The New Vic
-
- As a champion of the heroes of everyday life, Kidder highlights those who transcend cynicism and exemplify hope in his new book, Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O’Connell’s Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People
- Pico Iyer’s new book, The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise, was released on January 10, 2023 and became an immediate national bestseller
- Both authors will be signing books in the lobby of the New Vic before the event courtesy of Chaucer’s
- There are very few tickets currently available. Check with the box office for updates.
- Tickets & Info: www.ArtsAndLectures.UCSB.edu, (805) 893-3535
“I couldn’t put Rough Sleepers down. I am left in awe of the human spirit and inspired to do better.” – Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone
SANTA BARBARA — UCSB Arts & Lectures (A&L) presents Tracy Kidder in conversation with Pico Iyer Tuesday, March 14 at 7:30 p.m at The New Vic. Pulitzer Prize-winner Tracy Kidder stands at the forefront of American letters as a champion of the heroism of everyday life. With a reputation for faultless prose and profound insights, his mesmerizing profiles include Mountains Beyond Mountains, which brought the world’s attention to Dr. Paul Farmer, and the Pulitzer Prize-winner The Soul of a New Machine. In his newest work, Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O’Connell’s Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People, Kidder continues to amplify the efforts of unique individuals who transcend cynicism and create hope.
Pico Iyer is the author of 16 books, translated into 23 languages. His new book, The Half Known Life, has already been hailed as “a masterpiece… nothing less than a guided tour of the human soul” by Eat. Pray. Love. author Elizabeth Gilbert). Books by both authors will be available for purchase and signing prior to the on-stage conversation courtesy of Chaucer’s
Related Event: Mastering the Profile: Amplifying Voices of Unsung Heroes
Sun, Mar 19 / 1-2 PM / Dart Garden, 121 E Yanonali St., Santa Barbara / FREE
Drawing from Tracy Kidder’s use of the written profile to bring the groundbreaking achievements of humble leaders to broader public attention, former Santa Barbara Independent Executive Arts Editor Charles Donelan will guide participants in crafting compelling profiles of people they know and admire. Free copies of Tracy Kidder’s Rough Sleepers will be provided in advance.
Register at thematic-learning.org/2022-2023
ABOUT TRACY KIDDER
Over his long career, Tracy Kidder’s writing has been prolific and outstanding. The Soul of a New Machine – a book celebrated for its insight into the world of high-tech corporate America – earned him a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award in 1982. Other bestselling works include House, Among Schoolchildren, Old Friends and Home Town.
His enormously influential book Mountains Beyond Mountains captures two global health crises – tuberculosis and AIDS – through the eyes of a single-minded physician bent on improving the health of some of the poorest people on the planet. The story of Dr. Paul Farmer, a major force in revolutionizing international health, is a gripping and inspiring account of one man’s efforts to establish clinics and hospitals – his compassion for the poor, his inner circle of true believers and, ultimately, his success in helping stem the tide of new HIV and TB infections in Haiti. Farmer was the founder of Zanmi Lasante (Creole for Partners in Health), a non-governmental organization that is the only healthcare provider on the Plateau Central in Haiti.
In his following book, Strength in What Remains, Kidder delivers the humbling story of Deo, a young man whose will to survive and love of knowledge take him from the horrors of genocide in Burundi to Columbia University, and then on to medical school – a brilliant testament to the power of second chances and an inspiring account of one immigrant’s remarkable American journey. Dr. Paul Farmer and Partners in Health also play a pivotal role in Deo’s story, as they inspire him to establish his own clinic in Burundi. Strength in What Remains was a finalist for both the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2009 Los Angeles Times Book Award.
Much as he did with Paul Farmer in Mountains Beyond Mountains, Kidder’s recent book, Rough Sleepers, introduces readers to Dr. Jim O’Connell, who helped create a program to care for Boston’s homeless community. Today, Dr. O’Connell and his colleagues lead an organization that includes clinics affiliated with Massachusetts General Hospital and the Boston Medical Center, and a host of teams including a street team who reach rough sleepers by van. A symptom of the systemic failures that feed American poverty – racism, childhood trauma, violence – homelessness afflicts a broad and diverse population. Kidder spent more than five years riding with Dr. O’Connell as he navigated the city at night, offering medical care, socks, soup, empathy and friendship to some of the city’s endangered citizens. In Rough Sleepers, we meet some of the people Dr. O’Connell has cared for over the years, including Tony, a protector of others on the streets, and Joann, who spent many years on the streets and now lectures each new Harvard Medical School class. The powerful story of an inspiring doctor who made a difference, Rough Sleepers was released in early 2023.
ABOUT PICO IYER
Pico Iyer is the author of 16 books, translated into 23 languages, and dealing with subjects ranging from the XIVth Dalai Lama to Islamic mysticism and from globalism to the Cuban Revolution. They include such long-running sellers as Video Night in Kathmandu, The Lady and the Monk, The Global Soul and The Art of Stillness. He has also written the introductions to more than 70 other books, the liner notes for many Leonard Cohen CDs and Criterion Collection movies and a screenplay for Miramax. Since 1986 he has been a regular essayist for Time, The New York Times, Harper’s, The New York Review of Books and many others.
His four talks for TED have received more than 11 million views so far, and he has been featured in program-length interviews with Oprah, Krista Tippett and Larry King, among others.
Born in Oxford, England in 1957, he was a King’s Scholar at Eton, and was awarded a Congratulatory Double First at Oxford, where he received the highest marks of any student on English Literature at the university. He received a second Master’s degree at Harvard and was recently a Ferris Professor at Princeton.
Based since 1987 in western Japan, he travels widely, and his recent book, The Half Known Life, describes experiences in Iran, North Korea, Kashmir, Sri Lanka, Jerusalem and inner Australia.
About UCSB Arts & Lectures
Founded in 1959, UCSB Arts & Lectures (A&L) is the largest and most influential arts and lectures organization between Los Angeles and San Francisco. A&L annually presents more than a hundred public events, from critically acclaimed concerts and dance performances by world-renowned artists to talks by groundbreaking authors and film series at UCSB and Santa Barbara-area venues. With a mission to “educate, entertain and inspire,” A&L also oversees an outreach program that brings visiting artists and speakers into local classrooms and other venues for master classes, open rehearsals, discussions and more, serving K-12 students, college students and the general public.
There are very few tickets currently available for this event. Check with the box office for updates at (805) 893-3535.
Speaking with Pico Series Sponsors: Martha Gabbert, Siri & Bob Marshall, and Laura & Kevin O’Connor
Presented in association with Doctors Without Walls/Santa Barbara Street Medicine, and the following UCSB Departments: UCSB Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and Basic Needs Resources
Through its Justice for All Programming Initiative, A&L remains committed to addressing issues of social injustice
Special Thanks: Santa Barbara Independent and MichaelKate
UCSB Arts & Lectures gratefully acknowledges our Community Partners the Natalie Orfalea Foundation & Lou Buglioli for their generous support of the 2022-2023 season.