O'Brien will read from his work at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 12, in the auditorium of Allen Hall on the South Campus. The reading is sponsored by Talking Leaves Books and will be broadcast live over WBFO-FM 88.7, UB's National Public Radio affiliate.

O'Brien writes about the impossibility of telling stories true to the American experience of Vietnam. His 1989 novel, "Going After Cacciato," won the National Book Award and his 1990 collection of short stories about the war, "The Things They Carried," was both a critical and popular success. Its fragmented narrative concerns a single platoon whose members include O'Brien and among its stories are several that are widely considered among the best ever written about any war.

His most recent novel from Penguin, "In the Lake of the Woods," is a haunting mystery that evokes the horror of the My Lai massacre and its terrible reverberations in the life of one participant. It, too, has garnered enormous attention from the literary press and is a popular best seller. O'Brien is also the author of "If I Die in a Combat Zone Box Me Up and Ship" (1973).

The Wednesdays at 4 PLUS series also will include in September a reading of poetry and play excerpts by Carla Harryman, author of "There Never Was a Rose Without a Thorn," at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 13, in the Center for the Arts Screening Room on the North Campus. She will present a lecture/demonstration, "Poet's Theater," the following day at 12:30 p.m. in 438 Clemens Hall, also on the North Campus.

Writer, director, performer and installation artist Fiona Templeton will give a performance of her ingenious, gender-bending works at Hallwalls on Tuesday, Sept. 19, at 8 p.m.

The next day, Wednesday, Sept. 20, Templeton will screen the film "You-the City," based on her book of the same name and present a reading from her work at 4 p.m. in the Center for the Arts Screening Room.

On Thursday, Sept. 21, at 12:30 p.m., she will present a lecture/demonstration titled "Play True Be at Make Mean" in 438 Clemens Hall, North Campus.

Lucette Finas ends the September events with the first of the Fall 1995 series' "French Festival," which will also present several notable contemporary French writers during the month of October.

Finas is a distinguished French novelist and critic whose books include "L'echec" (1955), translated by Ralph Manheim as "The Faithful Shepherd" and published by Pantheon in 1963. She has also written essay collections on Derrida and Bataille, short story collections and other works.

She will present a bilingual prose reading on Wednesday, Sept. 27, at 4 p.m. in the Center for the Arts Screening Room and a lecture, "MallarmÚ's Art," at 12:30 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 28, in 438 Clemens Hall, North Campus.