The Plutzik Memorial Series will present internationally renowned writer Salman Rushdie during the University of Rochester's upcoming Meliora Weekend celebration. Rushdie's reading will take place at 3:15 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 12, in the Alexander Palestra, located in the Robert B. Goergen Athletic Center on the River Campus. Seating is on a first-come, first-serve basis. Because of the large number of visitors to campus that weekend and the large turnout expected for Rushdie's reading, please call (585) 275-4092 for parking instructions and other information.
Rushdie has won international acclaim as a novelist, critic, and a champion of freedom of expression. He became the center of worldwide attention when his novel The Satanic Verses (1988) provoked a death sentence against him by the Ayatollah Khomeini. He was later awarded the Whitbread Prize for that novel.
Rushdie received Britain's prestigious Booker Prize in 1981 for Midnight's Children, which was also named the outstanding Booker Prize-winning novel in the first 25 years of the award. His other novels include Midnight's Children, The Moor's Last Sigh, The Ground Beneath Her Feet, and more recently, Fury.
One of the country's oldest and most prestigious literary series, 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. The series is administered by the Department of English. Admission is free.
Rushdie's reading is co-sponsored by Wilson Commons/Student Activities Office, the Department of Religion and Classics, the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures, the Global Studies Cluster, and the Office of the Dean of the College.