Noted satirist brings 'interplanetary journey' to CU

If You Go

What: Bestselling author Gary Shtyengart will read from his new memoir, "Little Failure," and engage in a conversation with CU's Sasha Senderovich

When: 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 20

Where: Room 235, University Memorial Center, University of Colorado-Boulder campus

Tickets: Event is open to the public. Admission is free, but RSVPs are suggested. Email cujewishstudies@colorado.edu

Info: jewishstudies.colorado.edu or email cujewishstudies@colorado.edu

Looking at comic novelist Gary Shteyngart's life and career through a science-fictional prism, he sort of has it all, at least metaphorically: futurism, "time travel," technophilia. He's even an alien. Or as close to it as you can come.

Born in the former Soviet Union in 1972, he immigrated with his Jewish parents to the United States in 1979, that pivotal year in which, some argue, the Communist world began its final collapse, courtesy of Thatcher, Reagan, Gorbachev and Pope John Paul II.

"The experience of being born in the Soviet Union and coming to America, that's kind of science fiction right there," a buoyant Shteyngart says by phone from New York. "We took an interplanetary journey. We left a world that was struggling and slowly sliding into a Third World country. America had its problems, but it looked like the future to me ... I saw a Corvette and I thought, 'This thing can fly, surely!' It looked like it could take off to the stars."

Gary Shteyngart says he wrote "Little Failure" because it's time to leave behind his "Russian American experience." (Brigitte Lacombe / Courtesy photo)

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Noted satirist brings 'interplanetary journey' to CU