Department of English

• Thursday, October 15, 2026 - 5:00pm to 7:00pm

Kelly Writers House 3805 Locust Walk

We’re thrilled to welcome novelist and public defender Sergio de la Pava for a conversation with Faculty Director Simone White for this year’s Friedman Fiction Program. Called “one of the most fearsomely talented American novelists working today,” (Publishers Weekly) de la Pava’s debut novel, A Naked Singularity, originally self published, became a sensation, winning the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Best Debut Novel and landing on The Wall Street Journal (among others) best books of the year. His other works – Personae, Lost Empress, and Every Arc Bends Its Radian – are crime thrillers, detective stories, mysteries, and explorations of indoor football. They’re philosophical, wry, and often extremely funny maximalist books that tackle from nearly every direction the crushing reality of what passes for justice. 

The event will begin at 5:00 PM with a reception, and the interview/conversation will start at 6:00 PM.

We hope to see you there!

ABOUT SERGIO DE LA PAVA
Sergio is a novelist, having published four works of literary fiction.  He won the PEN/Bingham Award for Best Debut Fiction for his novel set in the NYC criminal punishment system, A Naked Singularity. His fourth novel, Every Arc Bends Its Radian, was recently released by Simon and Schuster resulting in the New York Times assessment that “De La Pava’s commitment to ideas – their creation and their interrogation – is so fervid that it lights up his prose.” Sergio was an Inaugural Member of the National Book Foundation’s Literature for Justice Committee and a member of National Book Award Judging Panel in Translated Literature. Additionally, Sergio is a careerlong public defender in New York City.  He is the Legal Director of New York County Defender Services where he continues to engage in trial work, legal education and training, and large-scale criminal reform advocacy.  Sergio is the recent recipient of the New York State Bar Association’s lifetime criminal defense practitioner award.  He is the author of The Public Defender – a longform essay on two decades of representing indigent people accused of crimes, published in Harper’s Magazine (October 2020) and One Will be Provided for You, an essay on Gideon v. Wainwright included in Fight of the Century: Writers Reflect on 100 Years of Landmark ACLU Cases, published by Avid Reader Press (2020).

ABOUT THE FRIEDMAN PROGRAM FOR EMINENT FICTION WRITERS
Endowed in 2021, the Friedman Program for Eminent Writers welcomes renowned fiction writers to KWH for public reading and events. Our inaugural Friedman Fiction Program featured the award-winning novelist Alice McDermott, who read excerpts from an upcoming work and joined a conversation with founding Faculty Director Al Filreis.