British Novelist Norfolk to Offer Reading

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Distinguished British novelist Lawrence Norfolk will conclude this year's Exhibit X Fiction Series with a reading at 7 p.m. April 2 in Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, located in Babeville, formerly The Church, 341 Delaware Ave.

The first international guest to participate in the Exhibit X series, Norfolk will read a selection from his novel-in-progress, which is set in 17th century England during the Civil War, as well as answer questions. A book signing will follow the reading.

The Exhibit X Fiction Series is presented by the Department of English in the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences. Norfolk's talk, as well as all others in the series, is free and open to the public.

Norfolk has been called "the most successful British novelist of his generation" by The Independent and "Britain's brightest young writer" by The Guardian. He is the author of three historical novels—"Lemprière's Dictionary," "The Pope's Rhinoceros" and "In the Shape of a Boar," which together have sold more than a million copies and been translated into 34 languages.

Norfolk, who lives in London with his wife and two sons, is the winner of the Somerset Maugham Award and the Budapest Festival Prize for Literature. His work has been short-listed for the Impac Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Award and the Wingate/Jewish Quarterly Prize for Literature.

In 1992, he was listed as one of Granta magazine's "Twenty Best Young British Writers."