Museum admission is free
galleries opening today at 11AM
Hammer Channel

Watch 1,000+ talks, performances, artist profiles, and more.

Go to Hammer Channel
Collections

See 50,000+ objects, including prints, photographs, paintings, and more.

Go to Hammer Collections
Headshot of Katie Kitamura alongside her book Audition
Readings

Some Favorite Writers: Katie Kitamura

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2025, Katie Kitamura’s most recent novel Audition asks who we are to the people we love. In this compulsively readable, brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day – partner, parent, creator, muse – and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us most intimately. 

Called “...one of America's best contemporary writers,” by the BBC, Kitamura has work translated into 21 languages and in adaptations for film and television. Her novel Intimacies was one of the New York Times’ 10 Best Books of 2021, was longlisted for the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, and was a finalist for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize. It was also one of Barack Obama’s favorite books of 2021.

Readings are followed by discussion with the author and UCLA professor Mona Simpson, who organizes this series. 

Copresented by the UCLA Department of English. Limited books will be available for purchase.  

ATTENDING THIS PROGRAM?

Ticketing: This free program is not ticketed.
Parking: Self-parking is available under the museum. Rates are $8 for the first three hours with museum validation, and $3 for each additional 20 minutes, with a $22 daily maximum. There is an $8 flat rate after 5 p.m. on weekdays, and all day on weekends.

Read our food, bag check, and photo policies.
Read the Hammer's full COVID-19 safety guidelines.

♿ Accessibility information

All public programs are free and made possible by a major gift from an anonymous donor. 

Lead support is provided by the Elizabeth Bixby Janeway Foundation. Major support is provided by Susan Bay Nimoy and Leonard Nimoy, with additional support provided by the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs and all Hammer members. 

Digital presentation of Hammer public programs is made possible by The Billy and Audrey L. Wilder Foundation. 

Hammer public programs are presented online in partnership with the #KeepThePromise campaign—a movement promoting social justice and human rights through the arts.

Related Programs