Bard Fiction Prize Winner Benjamin Hale To Give Reading at Bard College on February 27

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—Writer in residence Benjamin Hale will read from his work at Bard College on Monday, February 27. The free program begins at 7:00 p.m. in the László Z. Bitó ’60 Auditorium of the Reem-Kayden Center. Hale received the annual Bard Fiction Prize for 2012 for his debut novel, The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore (Twelve, 2011). The novel has been hailed as “a brilliant, unruly brute of a book” by the Washington Post, “an absolute pleasure” by the New York Times Book Review, and “a brave and visionary work of genius” by the San Francisco Chronicle.
 
The Bard Fiction Prize committee writes: “Benjamin Hale is a rare young writer, whose work is not only precocious but takes an evolutionary leap. Grounded in classical learning and the wisdom of literary predecessors, his debut novel swings valiantly through the trees with diction and vigor that are completely his own. The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore dares to speak in the voice of a chimpanzee: an articulate and morally engaged one, at that. This beast becomes the mouthpiece for literary humanism, and embodies as well the fierce problematic of the marginal—speaking up for life’s outsiders. Yet the heart that beats beneath Bruno’s savage breast is the novel’s most fiercely recognizable achievement. The central love story stands in for all passions that dare not speak their name. No human could tell it so truthfully.”
 
Benjamin Hale is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he received a Provost’s Fellowship to complete his novel The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore, which went on to win a Michener-Copernicus Award. Hale has been a night-shift baker, a security guard, a trompe l’oeil painter, a cartoonist, an illustrator, and a technical writer. He grew up in Colorado and now lives in New York City.                       
 
DOWNLOAD a high-resolution photo at www.bard.edu/news/press.

CAPTION INFO: Bard Fiction Prize Winner Benjamin Hale will read from his work on Monday, February 27 at 7 p.m. in the Reem-Kayden Center, László Z. Bitó ’60 Auditorium at Bard College.


                                                                         
(02/15/12)

This event was last updated on 02-24-2012

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