Paul Theroux: Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: 28,000 Miles in Search of the Railway Bazaar October 15, 2008

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Paul Theroux: Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: 28,000 Miles in Search of the Railway Bazaar
In conversation with Tom Curwen, Los Angeles Times staff writer

The writer who virtually invented the modern travel narrative returns - 30 years later - to the changed landscape of Eastern Europe, Central Asia, India, China, Japan, and Siberia.

*Arrive early and watch the televised Presidential debate. Doors open at 6:00pm with the ALOUD program immediately following the debate.

Paul Theroux began his travels after graduating from the University of Massachusetts in 1963. He taught briefly in Urbino, Italy, before joining the Peace Corps in Malawi, Africa, and eventually ended up teaching English at the Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. In 1971, he gave up teaching to write full time and England became his 17-year, on-again, off-again home.

Theroux received the Whitbread Prize for his novel Picture Palace (1978), and the James Tait Black Award for The Mosquito Coast (1982). His novels Saint Jack (1973), The Mosquito Coast, Doctor Slaughter (1984) and Half Moon Street (1984) have all been made into films. With the publication of The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train through Asia (1975), and continuing with The Old Patagonian Express, Theroux established himself as America's foremost travel writer. Other travel books by Theroux include The Kingdom by the Sea (1983), Sailing Through China (1984), Riding the Iron Rooster (1988) and more recently, Dark Star Safari, Overland from Cairo to Cape Town (2003), a revisit of Africa and his Peace-Corps past 40 years earlier. His most recent work of fiction is the novel Blinding Light ( 2005).

www.paultheroux.com

Tom Curwen is staff writer and editor at the Los Angeles Times. He was editor of the Outdoors section, a writer for the features section and deputy editor of the Book Review. He has been honored by the American Association of Sunday and Features Editors for three pieces he did for Outdoors on caving with nature writer, Barbara Hurd, on Alaskan bush pilots and the annual migration of sand hill cranes to the Bosque del Apache. He has a master's degree in Creative Writing from USC and was a recipient of a 1991 Academy of American Poets prize. In 2002, he received a Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for mental health journalism.

Tom Curwen is staff writer and editor at the Los Angeles Times. He was editor of the Outdoors section, a writer for the features section and deputy editor of the Book Review. He has been honored by the American Association of Sunday and Features Editors for three pieces he did for Outdoors on caving with nature writer, Barbara Hurd, on Alaskan bush pilots and the annual migration of sand hill cranes to the Bosque del Apache. He has a master's degree in Creative Writing from USC and was a recipient of a 1991 Academy of American Poets prize. In 2002, he received a Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for mental health journalism.

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Official Website: http://www.lfla.org/aloud/calendar/?month=10&year=2008&day=15