Culture
Zurich Liest – The Altruists by Andrew Ridker
The reading festival – Zurich Liest – had introduced many interesting and happening books to the city of Zurich during 23rd to 27th October, 2019. One among those impressive collections under fiction is “The Altruists” by Andrew Ridker. “The Altruists” is a story of a emotionally disconnected family whose members are deeply swamped by their own insecurities and inhibitions to focus on each others’ relationships. The reading happened at Karl der Grosse with English and German reading in the presence of its young writer, Andrew Ridker.
Source: Amazon
Just as the saying goes “Don’t judge a book by its cover”, it is lame to label Andrew Ridker as just another millennial flash as he is more than what he appears. “The Altruists” can be his first novel but he has already made a name of his own with prestigious Iowa Arts Fellowship from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and his works have notably appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review Daily, Guernica, Boston Review, The Believer, and St. Louis Magazine; and he is the editor of Privacy Policy: The Anthology of Surveillance Poetics.
During the one and half hour reading session, Andrew walked the audience through the story line of his novel and confessed how he created characters of his story out of his own personality. The protagonists, also siblings, of the novel, Ethan and Maggie are carefully crafted based on Andrew’s personal struggle before the success of his book. When questioned by the host on his purpose of choosing a subject so deep, Andrew cheerfully answered that the story of Alters family was never on his mind. He had been working on various other scripts and during that course he developed the character, Maggie. And before late, unbeknownst, he started developing associating characters and viola “The Altruists” was born. He also attributed his true to life narration to his job at publishing company during his pre-fame days for bringing him in direct contact with the real world of writing and publishing.
“The Altruists” is a New York Times Editors’ Choice, named a Best Book of the Week/Month/Season/Year by People, The Times, Vanity Fair, Amazon, InStyle, Real Simple, The Oregonian, and The New York Post and named a Most Anticipated Book of 2019 by The Millions, Southern Living, and Pure as well. It is widely translated into 18 languages including German, Dutch among other European languages. It is available on Amazon, IndieBound, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, or BAM.
