By Michelle Hines, University Relations
Contact: (336) 334-5371
Posted 12-18-07
John Irving.
GREENSBORO, NC – Novelist John Irving won’t be holed up at the Hotel New Hampshire the night of Thursday, Jan. 17. He’ll be farther south, reading at UNCG. (Update 1-17-08: Mr. Irving's reading has been postponed due to adverse weather, and will be re-scheduled.)
The reading begins at 8 p.m. in Elliott University Center Auditorium. The MFA Writing Program and The Greensboro Review are sponsoring the event, which is free and open to the public.
Irving was born in New Hampshire. He studied at universities in the U.S. and Europe and published his first novel, “Setting Free the Bears,” at 26. “The World According to Garp,” published in 1978 to phenomenal acclaim, established him as one of America’s most inventive novelists.
During the 1980’s Irving wrote “The Hotel New Hampshire,” “The Cider House Rules” and “A Prayer for Owen Meany.” In these novels his originality and striking vision came to the fore, along with his trademark subjects – feminism, religion, wrestling, sex and New England life.
More recent novels include the complex bestseller “A Son of the Circus,” the dark and funny novel “A Widow for One Year” and “The Fourth Hand,” a black comedy.
Several of Irving’s novels have been made into films. In 2000 he won an Oscar for the screenplay to “The Cider House Rules.” He described the difficult, decade-long journey from page to screen in “My Movie Business.” He also wrote “Trying to Save Piggy Sneed” and “The Imaginary Girlfriend,” memoirs of writing and wrestling.
Irving was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Okla., in 1992. In 2001 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in Vermont and Toronto.
For more information, contact Terry Kennedy at (336) 334-5459 or terry_kennedy@uncg.edu.
