Rushdie highlights Plutzik series

Rushdie

nternationally acclaimed writer Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses, will read from his work during this year's Plutzik Memorial Series, one of the country's oldest and most prestigious literary series. Rushdie's appearance in October highlights a lineup that also includes readings by three renowned writers.

John Hollander opens the 41st Plutzik season on Wednesday, September 25, in the Welles-Brown Room in Rush Rhees Library with a reading at 8 p.m. Hollander's first collection, A Crackling of Thorns, was chosen by W. H. Auden for the Yale Series of Younger Poets in 1958. Since then, he has published 16 books of poetry as well as eight books of literary criticism and has received the Bollingen Prize in Poetry and a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship.

Rushdie, whose appearance coincides with this fall's Meliora Weekend, will read at 3:15 p.m., Saturday, October 12, in Strong Auditorium.

After publication of The Satanic Verses in 1988, a novel seen as blasphemous by many Muslims, Rushdie was forced into hiding for 10 years when the Ayatollah Khomeini called for his death. Rushdie's reading is cosponsored by Wilson Commons/Student Activities Office, the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures, the Department of Religion and Classics, the Global Studies Cluster, and the Office of the Dean of the College.

Clayton Eshleman, the author of 12 books of poetry, will read from his work at noon, Wednesday, October 16, in the Welles-Brown Room. Eshleman is also the author of three prose works and was the founder and editor of two highly regarded literary magazines, Caterpillar and Sulfur.

The fall Plutzik Series concludes with a reading by poet Carl Phillips at 8 p.m. Wednesday, October 30, in the Welles-Brown Room. Phillips is the winner of the 2002 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Prize as well as the Morse Poetry Prize, the Lambda Literary Award, the Pushcart Prize, an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and an Academy of American Poets Prize.

The Plutzik Memorial Series was established in 1962 to honor the work of Hyam Plutzik, a distinguished poet and Deane Professor of Poetry and Rhetoric at the University. It is administered by the Department of English. Admission to the readings is free. For more information, call x5-4092.

Maintained by University Public Relations
Please send your comments and suggestions to:
Public Relations.