| RELATED INFO |
| * Literary Awards |
March 19, 2008
'Wonder Boys' author to speak at Literary Awards
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - |
The 8 p.m. event, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the Department of English, Purdue Libraries and the College of Liberal Arts.
Prior to Chabon's reading, Literary Awards recipients will be honored at a banquet at 5:30 p.m. in Purdue Memorial Union's North Ballroom. Chabon also will speak at the banquet about the writing process. Tickets for the banquet are $15 for students and $25 for non-students, and they can be purchased in Heavilon Hall, Room 324, or by calling the English department at (765) 494-3740. April 9 is the last day to buy tickets. The ticket price includes a predinner reception, banquet dinner, the awards ceremony and Chabon's talk on the creative process.
Chabon also will sign books after the reading in Loeb Playhouse. Books can be purchased on site from Von's books. Cash or check payment will be accepted.
Chabon's work includes "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay," which won the Pulitzer Prize, and is in production for a 2009 film. The Academy Award-winning Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan, are working on a film adaptation of Chabon's recent novel, "The Yiddish Policemen's Union." Two of Chabon's other books, "Wonder Boys" and "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh," have been made into films. Michael Douglas and Tobey Maguire starred in "Wonder Boys." Chabon also received credit on the movie "Spider-Man 2."
"Every Chabon book reveals a new level of dynamic prose, from the writing community evoked in 'Wonder Boys,' to the vivid 1940s New York-era of big dreams created in 'The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay,'" said Bich Minh Nguyen, assistant professor of English and chair of Literary Awards. "That novel, which won a Pulitzer Prize, draws on the 'golden age' of comic books -- the time of Superman and Batman -- as a way to develop characters who are dealing with issues such as exile and identity crisis. Michael Chabon is a terrific and generous speaker who enjoys meeting with people and talking about the writing process. I'm very much looking forward to his visit to Purdue."
Chabon also is author of the novel "Gentlemen of the Road" and the young adult novel "Summerland," as well as the short story collections "Werewolves in Their Youth" and "A Model World." He has published numerous essays, screenplays and novellas, and edited anthologies including the "2005 Best American Short Stories."
He was born in 1963 in Washington D.C., and raised mostly in Columbia, Md. He studied at Carnegie-Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh, and he earned a master of fine arts in creative writing from the University of California-Irvine. He lives in Berkeley, Calif.
Since 1928, Literary Awards has brought many writers to campus to speak at the awards banquet, including Sherman Alexie, A.S. Byatt, Maxine Hong Kingston, Tony Kushner, Tennessee Williams, John Irving and Louise Erdrich.
The Literary Awards Contest will award more than 70 prizes, totaling more than $10,000, to college and high school students in a variety of categories, including fiction, poetry, philosophy, literary criticism, history, and rhetoric and composition.
Writer: Amy Patterson Neubert, (765) 494-9723, apatterson@purdue.edu
Source: Bich Minh Nguyen, assistant professor of English and chair of Literary Awards, (765) 496-1651, nguyenb@purdue.edu
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu
To the News Service home page