The New York Times bestselling author Gary Shteyngart will be delivering the 33rd David W. Belin Lecture in American Jewish Affairs in a hybrid event on March 16, 2022. The lecture will begin at 6:00pm in the Weiser Hall 10th Floor Event Space. There will be a reception before the lecture at 5:30pm and a book signing at 7:30pm in conjunction with Literati Bookstore. Zoom registration: https://myumi.ch/Qqqrq

In this evening with Gary Shteyngart, the author will read from his work, discuss past Jewish immigration and current Jewish American affairs, and candidly answer audience questions about a wide range of social and literary topics.

Shteyngart wins over readers and audiences with his blistering humor, his satirical takedowns of contemporary society, and his compassionate examination of modern love and loss. His library of works deal with American immigrant stories with heart, humor, and biting wit. His New York Times bestselling memoir, Little Failure, is an account of his American immigrant experience, “moving back and forth through time and memory with self-deprecating humor, moving insights, and literary bravado.”  While Little Failure dealt more with parents and children, his latest book, Our Country Friends, is about, “immigrants reaching their middle age in America and full of Chekhovian regret…here the parents have been moved off the stage and only the children remain.” The novel follows a group of friends isolating together during the pandemic. Gary Shteyngart is also the author of the novels Super Sad True Love Story (winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize), Absurdistan, and The Russian Debutante’s Handbook (winner of the Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction and the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction). As a speaker, Shteyngart explores what it means to be an immigrant, a son, an American, a grown-up, and a writer.


The Belin lecture series was established in 1991 through a generous gift from the late David W. Belin of Des Moines and New York to provide an academic forum for the discussion of contemporary Jewish life in the United States. Previous scholars to hold this honor include Deborah Lipstadt, Samuel Freedman, Ruth Messinger, Jim Loeffler, Beth Wenger, and Lila Corwin Berman among others. Each year, the lecture is also published in written form in collaboration with Michigan Publishing.