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Free program is open to public

Acclaimed American novelist Toni Morrison, winner of both the Nobel and Pulitzer prizes, will discuss and read from her works on April 26 during a free public program at Rutgers University, Newark. Morrison’s talk and readings will be in the Paul Robeson Campus Center, in the Multipurpose Room (Room 231), at 350 Dr. Martin Luther King Blvd., from 5:30- 7 p.m.

Schools and groups planning to attend must contact Amy Ortiz, rnmfa@newark.rutgers.edu, to reserve space.

Morrison’s April 26 appearance is part of the Writers at Newark Reading Series at Rutgers in Newark, which brings nationally prominent writers of fiction, poetry and nonfiction to campus throughout the academic year.  This year alone, in addition to Nobel Laureate Morrison, four Pulitzer Prize-winning writers have given or will give talks, including poet Mark Strand, who read from his works on March 8. He won the award for Blizzard of One.

Toni Morrison, the first African-American woman to win the Nobel Prize, in 1993, is considered one of the most influential writers in America. She has received critical acclaim for her writings, including the National Book Critics Award in 1978 for Song of Solomon and the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Beloved. In 2006 Beloved was chosen by the New York Times Book Review as the best work of American fiction published in the last quarter-century. Her other novels include The Bluest Eye, Sula, Tar Baby, Jazz, Paradise, Love, and A Mercy.

“Toni Morrison’s visit is a great honor for our Writers at Newark Reading Series, the Rutgers-Newark Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program, the Rutgers-Newark campus, and Newark itself,” states Jayne Anne Phillips, director of the MFA program.  “Her  work addresses, perhaps more than the work of any other writer, the diverse complexities of history, race, and gender, and illustrates the transformational power of voice and literature. History may represent fact, but literature tells us the story.  Toni Morrison’s books comprise a national treasure and continue to inspire dialogue and change. We invite all of Newark to her reading in the Series,” says Phillips, herself an award-winning novelist, author of Lark & Termite, MotherKind, Machine Dreams, Black Tickets and Fast Lanes.

The free Morrison talk is co-sponsored by the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program at Rutgers-Newark, and the Rutgers Institute on Ethnicity, Culture and the Modern Experience.

 In addition to Morrison, the series will feature poets Rachel Hadas, Paul Muldoon and Peter Constantine on April 12, presenting “Poetry in Translation” in the Paul Robeson Campus Center Multipurpose Room (Room 231).  All of the spring 2011 programs also begin at 5:30 p.m. and end at 7 p.m.

The complete Writers at Newark Reading Series schedule, as well as biographies of the authors and poets, is online at http://www.mfa.newark.rutgers.edu/writersatnewark.htm