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Barnard
Hosts Books Etc. Readings Series this Fall To Honor Faculty
and Alumnae Authors
Lineup Includes Pulitzer Prize Winners Jhumpa Lahiri, Anna
Quindlen and Alice Walker; Noted Novelists Ursula Hegi and
Lynne Tillman
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Jhunpa
Lahiri
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In celebration
of its noted faculty, alumnae and visiting writers, Barnard
will host a series of public readings this fall, Books
Etc., featuring some of today’s most admired authors,
including Pulitzer Prize winners Jhumpa Lahiri, Anna Quindlen
and Alice Walker.
The series honors Barnard’s noted authors over the last
40 years, whose works are now compiled in an online
bibliography. which lists more than 1,300 published authors
among Barnard alumnae, 1963 to 2003, including eight Pulitzer
Prize winners, as well as faculty and visiting writers. These
acclaimed alumnae writers include Lahiri, Class of 1989, and
Quindlen, Class of 1974.
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Alice
Walker
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Lahiri
will read from her first novel, The Namesake, which
The New York Times book critic Michiko Kakutani, praised
in a Sept.
2 review, calling the story of two generations of an Indian
family "quietly dazzling." The book, wrote Kakutani,
"more than fulfills the promise of Ms. Lahiri’s
debut collection of stories, Interpreter of Maladies,"
winner of the 200 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Lahiri will
give her first public reading of the book at Barnard.
Walker will speak on the life and work of one of Barnard’s
most celebrated alumnae, the Harlem Renaissance figure Zora
Neale Hurston. Walker was credited with reviving interest
in Hurston 30 years ago in a celebrated essay.
Novelist Ursula Hegi also joins the lineup of acclaimed writers;
she will read from her new novel, Sacred Time, about
an Italian-American family in the Bronx, which will be published
in December. Hegi, author of Stones from the River
and other noteworthy novels, will be a visiting faculty member
in the Barnard English Department this fall, along with Lynne
Tillman, author of The New York Times Notable Book,
No Lease on Life (1998), who will also be part of the
Books Etc. series.
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Ursula
Hegi
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The Books,
Etc. schedule will be:
Tuesday, Sept. 30 – Lynne Tillman
Friday, Oct. 3 – Alice Walker
Thursday, Oct. 16 – Jhumpa Lahiri
Wednesday, Nov. 5 – Anna Quindlen
Tuesday, Nov. 18 – Ursula Hegi
Tuesday, Dec. 2 – gifted student writers
All of the readings are free and open to the public; they
begin at 7 P.M., except for the talk by Alice Walker, which
starts at 5:00 P.M. Lahiri, and Quindlen will speak in the
Millicent McIntosh Center, Lower Level; Walker in the LeFrak
Gymnasium; Tillman in the Altschul Hall Atrium and Hegi, in
the Julius Held Lecture Hall, 304 Barnard Hall. Call the Barnard
Office of Public Affairs, (212) 854-2037 for more information
and updates or visit www.barnard.edu/writers.
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Anna
Quindlen
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Lahiri’s
Pulitzer Prize-winning short story collection Interpreter
of Maladies, portrays characters who navigate between
the worlds of India and the United States and suffer dislocation
and disruption brought on by India’s tumultuous political
history. Quindlen’s byline has appeared in the country’s
most influential newspapers and magazines for 25 years and
her books on both fiction and non-fiction best-seller lists.
Recognized as one of the country’s most perceptive social
critics, she writes Newsweek’s popular column
"The Last Word." Quindlen, a Barnard trustee for
many years, begins her tenure as chair of the Board of Trustees
this fall. The author of four best-selling novels, she won
the Pulitzer Prize in 1992 for her commentary in The New
York Times. At Barnard, she has endowed a student writing
fellowship.
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Zora
Neale Hurston
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The Oct.
3 conference on Hurston, the pre-eminent woman writer of the
Harlem Renaissance and Barnard Class of 1928, will bring together
major biographers and scholars to reassess Hurston life and
work. The day-long conference, under the sponsorship of the
Virginia Gildersleeve lecture program and the Barnard Center
for Research on Women, opens at 10 a.m. and will feature authors
Valerie Boyd (Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale
Hurston), Carla Kaplan (Zora Neale Hurston: A Life
in Letters); Robert Hemenway (Zora Neale Hurston: A
Literary Biography) and Cheryl Wall (Women of the Harlem
Renaissance). Walker, famous for her Pulitzer Prize-winning
novel, The Color Purple, will close the conference
with a keynote lecture at 5:15 P.M. Walker helped spark a
renaissance of interest in Hurston in the mid-1970s, when
all of Hurston’s books were out of print. Her lecture
is titled: "Finding a World I Thought Was Lost: Zora
Neale Hurston and the People She Looked at Very Hard, and
Loved Very Much." For conference reservations and information,
please call (212) 854-2067 or visit www.barnard.edu/bcrw.
Books Etc. will wrap up its fall schedule on Tuesday, Dec.
2 at 7 P.M. with readings by emerging and gifted student writers
of the Barnard English Department in the Ella Weed Room, 2nd
floor, Milbank Hall.
Books Etc. is a joint project of the Barnard English Department,
the Provost’s Office, the Office of Development and Alumnae
Affairs, and the Office of Public Affairs.
Contact:
Suzanne Trimel, Barnard Office of Public Affairs, 212-854-2037,
strimel@barnard.edu
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