An Evening with Aria Aber: Good Girl

Phoenix Books Burlington is thrilled to present an evening with Aria Aber, assistant professor of creative writing at the University of Vermont, for a discussion of her debut novel, Good Girl.

“A haunting exploration of identity and desire, and a testament to Aber’s immense storytelling talent, ensuring Good Girl remains as remarkable and timeless as the very nature of fiction itself.”—Morgan Talty, author of Fire Exit

In Berlin’s artistic underground, where techno and drugs fill warehouses still pockmarked from the wars of the twentieth century, nineteen-year-old Nila at last finds her tribe. Born in Germany to Afghan parents, raised in public housing graffitied with swastikas, drawn to philosophy, photography, and sex, Nila has spent her adolescence disappointing her family while searching for her voice as a young woman and artist.
Then in the haze of Berlin’s legendary nightlife, Nila meets Marlowe, an American writer whose fading literary celebrity opens her eyes to a life of personal and artistic freedom. But as Nila finds herself pulled further into Marlowe’s controlling orbit, ugly, barely submerged racial tensions begin to roil Germany—and Nila’s family and community. After a year of running from her future, Nila stops to ask herself the most important question: Who does she want to be?
A story of love and family, raves and Kafka, staying up all night and surviving the mistakes of youth, Good Girl is the virtuosic debut novel by a celebrated young poet and, now, a major new voice in fiction.

Aria Aber was born and raised in Germany and now lives in the United States. Her debut poetry collection, Hard Damage, won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize and the Whiting Award. She is a former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford and graduate student at USC, and her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, New Republic, The Yale Review, Granta, and elsewhere. Raised speaking Farsi and German, she writes in her third language, English. She recently joined the faculty of the University of Vermont as an assistant professor of Creative Writing and divides her time between Vermont and Brooklyn.

DATE: Wednesday, January 22nd, 7PM

LOCATION: Phoenix Books Burlington, 89 Church Street, downtown Burlington

TICKETS: $3. Your ticket comes with a coupon for $3 off one of the featured author's books. Coupons expire at closing the evening of the event. Tickets can be purchased at the registration link below, or at the door.

BOOKS: Copies of will be available at the event. A book signing will follow the discussion.

Host or Publisher Phoenix Books