Lannan Center Podcast

On Tuesday, September 30th, the Lannan Center hosted a book launch for Rabih Alameddine's The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (And His Mother), hosted by Tope Folarin, Lannan Visiting Lecturer.Rabih Alameddine is the Lannan Foundation's Visiting Chair and author of seven critically acclaimed novels, most recently The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (And His Mother), winner of the 2025 National Book Award. He is also author of The Wrong End of the Telescope (Grove Press, 2021), winner of the Pen/Faulkner Prize in 2022; The Angel of History (Grove Press, 2016), winner of the Lambda Literary Award 2017; An Unnecessary Woman (Grove Press, 2014), a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award; The Hakawati (Knopf, 2008); I, The Divine (W.W. Norton, 2001); Koolaids (Picador, 1999); and a collection of short stories, The Perv (Picador, 1999). His honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2002, the Harold Washington Literary Award in 2018, the John Dos Passos Pri