On October 25, 2025, writers George Saunders and Zadie Smith took the stage. New Yorker fiction editor Deborah Treisman for discussion at the 26th annual New Yorker Festival, a weekend of conversations, screenings, performances and more. The festival, which became the hallmark of the magazine, was held in New York and brought together leading representatives of literature, cinema, comedy, television, politics and medicine.
George Saunders is the author of “Lincoln in the Bardo“, which won the Man Booker Prize in 2017, and five collections of short stories, including “Tenth of December“, a National Book Award finalist and recent collection “Liberation Day” He is the host of the popular blog Substack. Story Clubgrew out of his book about the Russian short story, “Swimming in a pond in the rain” In 2013, he was named one of the magazine's 100 most influential people in the world. Time magazine. Since 1997, he has taught in the creative writing program at Syracuse University.
Zadie Smith author of novels “White teeth“, “Man with autograph“, “About beauty“, “NW“, “Swing time,” And “Fraud“; in the news “Embassy of Cambodia“; collections of essays “Changing my mind“, “Don't be shy“, “Hints“, and the upcoming “Dead and Alive“; collection of stories, “Grand Union“; and the play “Willesden's wife“, adapted from The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. She is also the editor of the magazineOther People's Book” Smith was born in north-west London, where she still lives.
Deborah Treisman was a fiction editor in New Yorker since 2003. She joined the magazine as associate fiction editor in 1997. She is the host of the award-winning New Yorker Fiction Podcast and editor of the anthologies “Century of Fiction in New Yorker: 1925-2025” And “20 to 40: Stories from New Yorker” In 2012, she received the Maxwell E. Perkins Award for Excellence in Fiction.
