Amanda Rizkalla w/ Bella Bravo

Amanda Rizkalla visits the store for her debut novel, Hungered, and will be joined by Seattle writer Bella Bravo. This striking debut brings to life an unforgettable young narrator and the complicated, loving, cruel, and generous figures that make up her universe.

Sofia’s mother promises that soon she’ll have her own bedroom to decorate. Soon, too, she’ll be able to see her friends, go back to school, and eat the colorful, tempting cakes in the grocery store’s display case. For now, though, twelve-year-old Sofia lives with her mother and younger brother in their car. For now, Sofia’s days are a blur of freeways and strip malls as her mother searches for a safe place to park for the night. For now, Sofia tries to carve out a space and an identity for herself while grappling with her family’s disintegration.

For readers of The House on Mango Street and We the Animals, this haunting and lyrical novel captures the fault lines of an existence marked by economic insecurity, exploring what it means to come of age during a moment of displacement. Beautiful, evocative, and emotionally charged, Amanda Rizkalla’s Hungered is an indelible ode to survival, memory, and the search for home in its many forms.

Amanda Rizkalla is a recent Steinbeck Fellow and Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing Fellow. She has been a writer-in-residence at Ragdale, Hedgebrook, Djerassi, Mountain Words, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Monson Arts, and Blue Mountain Center. After graduating from Stanford University, she received her MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she was the Kemper Knapp Fellow. Her work has received a grant from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, an Elizabeth George Foundation Fellowship through Hedgebrook, and nominations for the Pushcart Prize. Hungered is her debut novel.

Bella Bravo is a writer living in Seattle. They earned their MFA from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and teach at Hugo House.