ALL EVENTS ARE FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

KURT VONNEGUT is widely regarded as one of the great satirists of American literature. He is the author of two dozen novels, including Timequake (1997), Breakfast of Champions (1973), and The Sirens of Titan (1959). Vonnegut is perhaps best known for the novel Slaughterhouse Five (1969), which was recently ranked No. 18 on the Modern Library's list of the top 100 novels of the 20th century.
JOHN ASHBERY is one of America's preeminent poets. Perhaps the most honored poet of his generation, his volume Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror (1975) earned him the Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Critics Circle Award. His twenty volumes of verse include Your Name Here (200), Houseboat Days (1977), and Some Trees (1956).
    George Plimpton will host this special celebration to honor the recent selection of Kurt Vonnegut as New York State Author and John Ashbery as New York State Poet. The event will include a reading of the Edith Wharton Citation of Merit for Authors and the Walt Whitman Citation of Merit for Poets that will be presented to them by Governor George Pataki earlier in the day, along with remarks and a reading by the two awardees.

BHARATI MUKHERJEE has established herself as a powerful member of the American literary scene, one whose most memorable works reflect not only pride in her Indian heritage, but also her celebration of embracing America. She has published four novels, The Tiger's Daughter (1971), Wife (1975) Jasmine (1989), and The Holder of the World (1993); two short story collections, Darkness (1985) and The Middleman and Other Stories (1988) which received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction; and two nonfiction works, Days and Nights in Calcutta (1986) and The Sorrow and the Terror: The Haunting Legacy of the Air Indian Tragedy (1987) both w/Clark Blaise.
CLARK BLAISE has taught in Montreal, Toronto, Saskatchewan and British Columbia, as well as at Skidmore College, Columbia University, NYU, Sarah Lawrence and Emory. For several years he directed the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. He is the author of A North American Education (1973), Tribal Justice (1974), Lunar Attractions (1979), Lusts (1983), Resident Alien (1986), Man and His World (1992), I Had a Father (1993), Here,There and Everywhere (1994), If I Were Me (1997), to be published Time Lord (2001).

JULIAN SCHNABEL, is best known as a visual artist whose paintings and sculptures have been exhibited all over the world. He recently turned his artistic focus to film writing and directing. He will present film commentary and answer questions immediately following the his new film BEFORE NIGHT FALLS.

African novelist EMMANUEL DONGALA was dean of Brazzaville University in the Congo Republic, a professor of chemistry, a writer honored in France with the rank of Chevalier des Art et des Letres and former president of the Congelese chapter of PEN, the international writer's organization.. He left the Congo in 1997 amid civil war and is currently a visiting professor of chemistry and African literature at Simon's Rock College. Dongala's two novels, Little Boys Come From the Stars (1998, 2001), and The Fire of Origins (1987, 2001) have recently been published in England.

STEVE HART is a free-lance photographer whose work has appeared in numerous publications including the New York Times. With his images, narration, and recorded interviews, he created A Bronx Family: The Impact of AIDS, an interactive CD-ROM which documents six years in the life of a Puerto Rican family dealing with AIDS, poverty, love, and death. Hart's documentary work has been exhibited across the U.S., Latin America, and Europe and is included in the collections of the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris; the Smithsonian Institution, Washington; and the Museum of the City of New York.

YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA is the author of eleven poetry volumes including most recently Talking Dirty to the Gods (2000), Thieves of Paradise (1998), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, Neon Vernacular (1993), which won the Pulitzer Prize, Magic City (1992), and Dien Cai Dau (1988). His work is praised for its inventiveness in creating complex images of life in his native Louisiana and the jungles of Vietnam. Komunyakaa's prose is collected in Blue Notes: Essays, Interviews and Commentaries (2000).

JOSEPH PERSICO - Long before he collaborated on the best-selling My American Journey with Colin Powell, Persico was already a biographer and historian of national rank, with works on the Civil War's Battle of Gettysburg, World War II American espionage, Nelson Rockefeller, broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow, former CIA Director William Casey , and the Nuremberg trials of 1946. Persico was also chief speech writer for Governor Nelson Rockefeller for eight years.

COLM TÓIBÍN is an Irish writer and journalist and the author of four novels including The South, which received the 1991 Irish Times/Aer Lingus Literature Prize, and The Heather Blazing. Tóibín is also the author of three nonfiction books, Bad Blood: A Walk Along the Irish Border, Homage to Barcelona, and The Sign of the Cross: Travels in Catholic Europe. In 1995, he was awarded the American Academy of Arts and Letters E. M. Forster Prize. He lives in Dublin.

SUSAN SONTAG, a nonfiction and fiction writer, has been a shaper of contemporary criticism. Her nonfiction works include Cage-Cunningham-Johns: Dances on a Plane (1990), AIDS and Its Metaphors (1989), Illness as Metaphor (1978), On Photography (1977), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism, and the seminal Against Interpretation (1966). Though best known for her nonfiction, Sontag has also written fiction including the novels In America (2000), which won the National Book Award, The Volcano Lover (1992) and Death Kit (1967).

MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM received the 1999 Pulitzer Prize and PEN/Faulkner Award for his novel The Hours, which skillfully weaves together the stories of three women inspired by Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. Cunningham's other novels include Flesh and Blood (1995) which won a Whiting Writer's Award, A Home at the End of the World (1990), in which an excerpt, entitled "White Angel" was published in The New Yorker, and was chosen for Best American Short Stories 1989, and Golden States (1984). His work has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Redbook, Esquire, The Paris Review and The New Yorker.

OPAL PALMER ADISA is a Jamaican born novelist, poet, essayist, children's book author, visual artist, story-teller and teacher. Her poetry, stories and articles have been anthologized widely, and she is the author of Pina, The Many-Eyed Fruit (1985), Bake-Face and Other Guava Stories (1986), Traveling Women (1989) and Tamarind and the Mango Women (1992).

ALICE KAPLAN, literary critic and historian, is the author of The Collaborator: The Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillach (2000), which was nominated for a National Book Award, French Lessons: A Memoir (1993), named a New York Times notable book, and Reproductions of Banality: Fascism, Literature, and French Intellectual Life (1986). Kaplan is Director of the Center for French and Francophone Studies at Duke University.

KEN KESEY, writer and cultural hero of the counterculture revolution of the 60s, is the celebrated author of the widely read novels One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962) and Sometimes a Great Notion (1964). The 1975 film adaptation of Cuckoo's Nest, starring Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher, won six Academy Awards. A pivotal figure between the Beats and the Hippies, Kesey chronicled the activities of his associates, the Merry Prankster, in his books Kesey's Garage Sale (1973) and Demon Box (1986). His most recent works include the novels Last Go Round (1994), Sailor Song (1992), and two children's books.

PETER SELLARS, Artistic Director of the Adelaide Festival of Arts, Professor of World Arts and Culture, UCLA, renowned director of theatre, opera, film, and television, will share his observations on contemporary theatre.
Attendees are invited to a reception immediately follow the evening lecture.