Veteran New Yorker essayist Adam Gopnik talks about liberal democracy, its strategy for survival, and its risks of extinction.

Adam Gopnik has been writing for The New Yorker since 1986. During his more than thirty years at the magazine, he has written more than a million words throughout hundreds of essays, from personal memoirs to reviews and profiles, along with much reporting from abroad, along with fiction, humor and art criticism. His books, ranging from essay collections about Paris and food to children’s novels, include Paris to the Moon, The King in the Window, Through the Children’s Gate: A Home in New York, Angels and Ages: A Short Book About Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life, The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food, and Winter: Five Windows on the Season (Fiftieth Anniversary Massey Lecture) , At The Strangers’ Gate and most recently A Thousand Small Sanities: The Moral Adventure of Liberalism. Gopnik has won the National Magazine Award for Essays and for Criticism three times, as well as the George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting. In March of 2013, Gopnik was awarded the medal of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Republic. Two months later, he received a honoris causa from his Alma matter, McGill University and that same year also received an honorary doctorate from the Rhode Island School of Design. His work in the musical theater includes the libretto and lyrics for the musical comedy “Our Table” with David Shire, and for the oratorio “Sentences,“ with Nico Muhly.  He lives in New York with his wife, Martha Parker, and their two children, varyingly present, Luke and Olivia.         

This event is made possible in part by a grant from William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty.

Photo: Brigitte Lacombe