Book Chat: David K. Shipler and Thomas L. Friedman — The Interpreter

Monday, April 21, 2025 | 6:00 p.m.

$0 | Friedman Family Auditorium

Join Pulitzer Prize-winning writers David Shipler and Tom Friedman as they discuss Shipler’s new novel, The Interpreter, which illuminates the tormented role of those who make war correspondents’ work possible — the local translators who risk their lives to interpret their countries for the foreigners who watch from a safe distance. Set at the end of the Vietnam war, Shipler’s work of historical fiction is based on the true story of a Vietnamese interpreter who is wounded (not physically) by a love of country too pure for the contaminated choices that confront him. “Every word has meaning above itself,” he declares. “I give the words true meaning.” As the war ends, he must make a fateful decision — to escape and uproot himself from his homeland, or to remain and endure whatever comes next. 

Stick around after the discussion for a Q&A and book signing in celebration of the release of Shipler’s eye-opening novel, The Interpreter.

5:30 – 6:00 p.m. — Light standing reception (Welcome Lobby)
6:00 p.m. — Program begins (Friedman Family Auditorium)
7:00 – 8:00 p.m. — Book signing (Welcome Lobby)

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