Two of writing’s brightest stars align today at Inprint’s Margarett Root Brown Reading Series, as Laura Restrepo and Alice McDermott take the stage. Restrepo, from Colombia, wrote the award-winning books Leopard in the Sun, The Angel of Galilea and, most recently, Delirium, her political yet passionate novel about the machismo and brutality that predominated in Pablo Escobar’s Colombia. It’s a subject Restrepo knows a lot about. She was a negotiator for the war between the Colombian government and the guerilla group M-19 in the late 1980s. Restrepo had previously been an underground resistance fighter in Argentina. As a result of her political involvement, she received death threats and was forced into a self-imposed exile; she currently lives in Mexico.

Joining her will be Alice McDermott, known for intimate yet profound prose about Irish-Catholic American life. McDermott has penned six novels, including That Night, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, Charming Billy, which won the National Book Award, and Child of My Heart. Known for her precise, meaning-packed prose, McDermott will read from her newest book, After This, which focuses on a family in the second half of the twentieth century. 7:30 p.m. Hobby Center for the Performing Arts, 800 Bagby. For information, call 713-521-2026 or visit www.inprinthouston.org. $5.

Mon., March 31, 7:30 p.m., 2008

This article appears in Mar 27 – Apr 2, 2008.