Coetzee to Give Butler Chair Prose Reading on Oct. 17

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Award-winning novelist J.M. Coetzee, a University at Buffalo faculty member from 1968-71, will deliver the Edward H. Butler Chair Prose Reading at 8 p.m. Oct. 17 in the Screening Room in the Center for the Arts, North Campus.

A native of South Africa, Coetzee twice has won the Booker Prize, Great Britain's highest award for fiction, for his post-colonial novels "The Life and Times of Michael K." (1984) and "Disgrace" (1999).

In conjunction with Coetzee's appearance, the University Libraries has organized an exhibit of the author's work in Lockwood Library, North Campus.

In addition, the Libraries will present two supporting programs the day before Coetzee's reading.

A brown-bag lunch video screening of the 1997 documentary "Gerrie & Louise" will be held from noon to 2 p.m. Oct. 16 in the Friends Room in Lockwood Library. The film tells the story of Louise Flanagan, chief investigator of the Truth Commission in the Eastern Cape Province, and her husband, Gerrie Hugo, a seasoned veteran of apartheid South Africa's army. The film will be introduced by Claude Welch, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Political Science.

Later that day, from 4-5:30 p.m. in the Special Collections Reading Room, 420 Capen Hall, North Campus, a discussion of Coetzee's works will be held. Among the participants will be Hershini Bhana and UB faculty members Mark Shechner, professor of English; Shaun Irlam, associate professor and chair of the Department of Comparative Literature, and Carine Mardorossian, assistant professor of English.