Scott Timberg talks with Chris Abani.
“Abani, a burly, engaging 40-year-old who speaks in a soft English accent, has published several well-received books of poetry and is best known for 2004's PEN/Hemingway-award winning novel, GraceLand, about a Nigerian teenage Elvis impersonator. In the new novel [The Virgin of Flames], he's seeking what he calls ‘an uneasy grace.’ Critics have found the book both dazzling and frustrating but have been unanimous in praising Abani's ravishing vision of the city — a Los Angeles, that, as Rubén Martínez noted in The Times, ‘has received only increments of mainstream literary representation.’" – from “Chris Abani is Living in the 'Perfect Metaphor,'” by Scott Timberg, Los Angeles Times