RENOWNED AUTHOR ROBERT COOVER TO GIVE READING AT BARD COLLEGE ON MONDAY, NOVEMBER 28 Author of The Origin of Brunists, Pricksongs & Descants, The Public Burning, and Many Other Works to Read from New Collection

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—Renowned author Robert Coover, whom the New York Times has called “a one-man Big Bang of exploding creative force,” will give a public reading from his new short story collection, A Child Again, at Bard College on Monday, November 28. Widely hailed as a pioneer and master of modern fiction, Coover is the author of several volumes of short fiction, including Pricksongs & Descants and A Night at the Movies, and many novels, including The Origin of Brunists, which won the William Faulkner Award, and The Public Burning, which was nominated for a National Book Award. He will be introduced by novelist and Bard literature professor Bradford Morrow. The reading, which is being presented as part of Morrow’s Innovative Contemporary Fiction course, is free and open to the public and takes place at 2:30 p.m. in Weis Cinema in the Bertelsmann Campus Center. In A Child Again, Coover recasts many of our most familiar fairy-tales and thrusts their legendary characters into precisely rendered and menacingly recognizable life. Coover “works through a thicket of custom and fable, tackling combative magic dragons along with ignored invisible men. . . . One by one, ancient stories are distilled into their essential anxieties, and Coover fervently unearths each tale’s special claim to our world. His sparkling, unbridled prose resurrects our cardboard childhood archetypes and endangers them anew, incorporating our hopes and fears into their familiar stories. Little Red Ridinghood isn’t out of the woods yet” (McSweeney’s). In addition to the works mentioned above, Coover is the author of A Theological Position; Pinocchio in Venice; A Child Again; Spanking the Maid; Gerald’s Party; John's Wife; Ghost Town; Briar Rose; The Universal Baseball Association, J. Henry Waugh, Prop.; and many other works. His poems, translations, and short fiction have appeared in numerous publications including American Review, Esquire, Iowa Review, Granta, Harper’s, and Bard College’s literary journal, Conjunctions. His essays and criticism have been published in the New York Times Book Review, Saturday Review, and the Review of Contemporary Fiction, among other publications. He has received numerous awards and fellowships, including those from the Rockefeller Foundation, Guggenheim Foundation, and National Endowment for the Arts. Coover began his teaching career at Bard College in 1966 and now teaches at Brown University, where he offers courses in hypertext and mixed-media writing along with traditional workshops. He has also taught at the University of Iowa and Princeton University. He is a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, PEN International, and various human rights organizations, and is on the boards of the International Writers Center of Washington University, St. Louis, and several literary publications. He has a B.A. in Slavic studies from Indiana University and an M.A. in general studies in the humanities from the University of Chicago. For more information about the reading, call Michael Bergstein at 845-758-1539. # # # (11.15.05)

This event was last updated on 11-29-2005

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