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Famed novelist and Carolina alumnus Russell Banks will give a free, public
reading and join panels discussing his work during the week of April 3 as the
2000 Morgan Family Writer-in-Residence.
A prolific fiction writer, Banks is the author of 13 books, including nine
novels and four collections of stories. Two of his novels, Affliction (Academy
Award Winner for Best Supporting Actor James Coburn) and The Sweet Hereafter
(1997 Cannes Film Festival Winner) have been adapted to film. Rule of the Bone,
Continental Drift and The Book of Jamaica are also being adapted to film.
A new collection of his short stories, The Angel on the Roof: New &
Selected Stories, will be published in June.
A 1967 alumnus who graduated Phi Beta Kappa, Banks was raised in New
Hampshire and Eastern Massachusetts in a working-class environment, which has
played a major role in his writing.
Before he could support himself as a writer, he tried his hand at
plumbing, and as a shoe salesman and window trimmer. Among his early works was
a literary magazine, Lillabulero, which he began publishing as a student
here.
Doris Betts, retired alumni distinguished professor, began her Carolina
teaching career when Banks was a student in 1966.
"Russell was already pretty clear about what and how he wanted to write,
so I don't know that any of us made much difference. ... He already had quality
about his work that has come to fit the word `postmodern.' The best thing most
of us could do was to stand out of his light," Betts said.
Prior to and following Banks' reading, April 4 at 7:30 p.m. in Memorial
Hall, the Bull's Head Bookshop will sell copies of his works.
Banks has won numerous awards for his work, including a Guggenheim
Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships, O.
Henry and Best American Short Story Award. Continental Drift was a finalist for
the Pulitzer Prize in 1986.
Banks' visit is made possible by the Morgan Writer-in-Residence program,
created in 1993 by alumni Allen and Musette Morgan of Memphis, Tenn., to bring
distinguished writers to Carolina to meet with students and faculty and give
lectures and readings.
Former Morgan Writers-in-Residence include Pulitzer Prize winner Richard
Wilbur, Civil War expert and author Shelby Foote, poet Robert Pinsky and
Pulitzer winners Richard Ford, Annie Dillard, Beth Henley and Rita Dove.
Russell Banks on campus
Events are free and open to all.
* April 2. Screenings of films based on Banks' novels. Carolina Union
theater. Affliction, 7 p.m. The Sweet Hereafter, 9:30 p.m.
* April 3, 3:30 p.m. Banks joins Carolina faculty discussing his fiction.
Toy Lounge, Dey Hall.
* April 3. Screenings repeated. Carolina Union theater. The Sweet
Hereafter, 7 p.m. Affliction, 9:30 p.m.
* April 4, 7:30 p.m. Reading by Banks. Memorial Hall.
* April 6, 2 p.m. Banks and faculty members Marianne Gingher, Kimball King,
Fiona Mills, Ashley McKinney, Howard Harper and Stephen Fischer will discuss
the adaptation of Banks' novels to film. Commons Room, Graham Memorial
Hall.
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