Author to read from prize-winning novel

Brown

ormer journalist and author of the award-winning novel, The Hatbox Baby, Carrie Brown will read from her work at 4 p.m. Sunday, March 24, in the Welles-Brown Room of Rush Rhees Library. The event is free and open to the public and will be followed by a reception and book signing.

Praised for its lyrical prose and vivid storytelling, The Hatbox Baby, Brown's third novel, has been selected to receive the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize presented by the Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender and Women's Studies and the Department of English. Winner of the Library of Virginia Award for fiction and the Great Lakes Book Award, the novel takes place at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair and revolves around the people whose lives are touched by a premature infant.

"Brown's novel is gothic in scope, acute in historical detail, and, above all, stylish in its rich wealth of prose," noted Dimitri Anastasopoulos, visiting assistant professor of English and a member of the Kafka Prize selection committee. "The Hatbox Baby reveals a sad and elegant kaleidoscope of people and their troubles in which one tiny abandoned life collects to it an array of lush phenomena. Brown's success rests in her delicate skill at creating relationships that yield clarity."

Brown is the author of two other novels, Rose's Garden, which received the 1998 Barnes and Noble Discover Award, and Lamb in Love. Brown's first collection of short stories, The House on Belle Isle, is scheduled to be released at the end of March.

The Kafka Prize was established in 1976 in memory of Janet Kafka, a young editor killed in an automobile accident. For more information on the reading call x5-8318.

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