Author Josip Novakovich to Give Talk and Reading on Nov. 13
Author Josip Novakovich, winner of the Whiting Writers Award, will give a talk and reading at Washington and Lee University on Thursday, Nov. 13, at 4:30 p.m. in Northen Auditorium, Leyburn Library.
The title of Novakovich’s talk and reading, which is free and open to the public, is “Writing in the Stepmother Tongue,” about immigrant experiences in the United States and Canada. The author will sign copies of some of his books.
The talk is sponsored by the Glasgow Endowment Fund and the Sociology and Anthropology Department.
Novakovich studied medicine at the University of Novi Sad in Serbia and after moving to the United States, earned his B.A. from Vassar College, his M.Div. from Yale University and his M.A.in English/creative writing from the University of Texas at Austin.
He is the author of a novel, “April Fool’s Day” (2004); three short story collections “Yolk” (1994), “Salvation and Other Disasters” (1998) and “Infidelities: Stories of War and Lust” (2005); and four collections of narrative essays, including “Plum Brandy: Croatian Journey” (2003). He is also the author of two textbooks and hundreds of short stories and essays.
Novakovich is the recipient of the Whiting Writer’s Award, a Guggenheim fellowship, two fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts, panelist of National Endowment of the Arts, an award from the Ingram Merrill Foundation, and an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation.
Novakovich was a finalist for the The Man Booker International Prize in 2013. He was anthologized in “Best American Poetry,” “Pushcart Prize” (three times), and “O.Henry Prize Stories.” “Kirkus Reviews” called Novakovich “the best American short stories writer of the decade.”
His works are published in the top literary magazines in the U.S., including “Ploughshares,” The New York Times Magazine, “Double Take,” “The Threepenny Review,” to name a few.
Novakovich has taught at Nebraska Indian Community College, Bard College, Moorhead State University, Antioch University Los Angeles, creative writing at the University of Cincinnati and Pennsylvania State University. He is currently in Montreal, Quebec, teaching at Concordia University.
