VIKRAM CHANDRA | Geek Sublime: The Beauty of Code, the Code of Beauty

“Computing has transformed all our lives, but the processes and culture which produce software remain largely opaque, alien, unknown...Whenever I tell one of my fellow authors that I supported myself through the writing of my first novel by working as a programmer and a computer consultant, I evoke a response that mixes bemusement, bafflement, and a touch of awe, as if I’d just said that I could levitate...Many programmers, on the other hand, regard themselves as artists.”

Vikram Chandra’s GEEK SUBLIME is about many things: the world of computer programming and the writer’s art, mostly. but it’s also about much more than that: the history of computers, the culture of Silicon Valley, why programmers in the early days were mostly women, why so many programmers today are Indian, and why programmers consider themselves artists -- as well as about logic gates, linguistics, synthetic biology, the difference between ugly code and beautiful code, the Sanskrit language, Indian literary theory, and so much more.

The Guardian calls GEEK SUBLIME “fascinating and often beautiful”; the Telegraph (UK) hailed it as “thought-provoking...part memoir, part analysis of geeks, part aesthetic treatise”. It is a singular work by one of today’s most critically acclaimed writers, a work that captivates with its fresh and sweeping ideas on a culture that influences us all.

Vikram Chandra is the author of three works of fiction, most recently Sacred Games. He lives in Oakland and teaches at UC Berkeley.

7:30 PM at the Hillside Club (2286 Cedar Street, Berkeley)
Advance tickets $12 general, $8 students (ID at door), at Brown Paper Tickets online or 800-838-3006; $20 at the door