Yale Bulletin and Calendar

October 21, 2005|Volume 34, Number 8

Caryl Phillips

Novelist will read from his latest work of fiction

Celebrated writer and Yale professor of English Caryl Phillips will read from his latest novel at 4:30 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 24, at St. Anthony Hall, 483 College St.

Phillips will read from "Dancing in the Dark," a fictionalized account of early 20th-century entertainer Bert Williams, who -- although African-American -- performed on stages across the country in blackface.

Recently appointed to the Yale faculty, Phillips has been hailed as a major voice of the African Diaspora. He is the author of seven novels and three works of nonfiction. One of his novels, "Crossing the River," won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was short-listed for the 1993 Booker Prize, the highest award for literature in the United Kingdom. His novel "A Distant Shore" won the 2004 Commonwealth Writers Prize.

Phillips is the editor of two anthologies, and he has written for television, radio, theater and film. His non-fiction work includes a travel narrative, "The European Tribe," winner of the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize; "The Atlantic Sound," an account of his journey to three hubs of the Atlantic slave trade -- Liverpool, Elmina on the west coast of Ghana, and Charleston, South Carolina; and "A New World Order: Selected Essays." Phillips is also the editor of "Extravagant Strangers," an anthology of work by British writers born outside Britain, including Ignatius Sancho, Rudyard Kipling, Samuel Selvon and Salman Rushdie. Phillips wrote the film adaptation of V.S. Naipaul's novel "The Mystic Masseur," first screened in 2001.

The author has taught at universities in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and the United States. He was a professor of English at Amherst College 19941998 and before joining the Yale faculty this year, was professor of English and the Henry R. Luce Professor of Migration and Social Order at Barnard College. He became a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2000.

T H I SW E E K ' SS T O R I E S

University dedicates Malone Engineering Center

Biomedical engineering symposium also marked dedication

Celebrated language-learning program enters digital age

Coach is helping to steer city rowers to victory

Yale offers staff new incentives to car-pool

In Focus: Whitney Humanities Center

Tanner Lecture, related events focus on food and art of autobiography

Grant supports scientist's work related to nanomedicine

Scientists identify gene that plays a role in Tourette's Syndrome

Noted journalist Bob Woodward to deliver the Fryer Memorial Lecture

Show reveals 'journey' of reconstructive surgery patients

Career Fair to highlight jobs in federal government agencies

Troupe to present two nights of one-act operas

Novelist will read from his latest work of fiction

Exhibit traces roots of Tiananmen Square movement

Reparations for slavery to be among topics of conference

Talk, symposium examine how artists 'remade the past'

David Blight is speaker for library's next 'Books Sandwiched In'