On Wednesday, President Daniels announced the University’s second annual President's Reading Series.
The first speaker, Lawrence Hill, will appear on Sept. 23. Hill has authored eight books and is best-known for his 2007 novel The Book of Negroes, which earned him both the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book and the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize.
Hill will be followed by English writer Allan Hollinghurst on Oct. 21. In 2004, Hollinghurst received the Man Booker Prize for his novel The Line of Beauty, which chronicles the experiences of a gay man who lives in London during the growth of AIDS in the 1980s. He has received multiple awards, including the Somerset Maugham Award in 1989 and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1994. His most recent novel is titled The Stranger’s Child.
On March 31, Aleksandar Hemon is scheduled to speak about his works, which include Love and Obstacles, The Lazarus Project and Nowhere Man, among others. Hemon, originally from Sarajevo, took refuge in the United States over 20 years ago. Similar to the other prolific authors appearing in this series, Hemon has won his share of literary awards, including the Jan Michalski Prize for Literature and the PEN/W.G. Sebald Award. Hemon also received a Guggenheim Fellowship, the MacArthur Foundation’s “genius grant” and a 2012 USA Fellowship.
On April 28, Zadie Smith will conclude the series. Smith authored White Teeth, which won The James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction and The Commonwealth Writers’ First Book Award, among others. Since then, she has penned On Beauty and NW, both of which were favorable received by critics.
Last year, the inaugural series featured Isabel Wilkerson, Colum McCann and Ishmael Beah, among other authors.
The 2014 President's Reading Series will be open to the public, and each session will conclude with a book signing and a dessert reception.
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