April 22, 1999

William Kennedy, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author, To Speak At Ramapo College

(Mahwah) -- Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist William Kennedy will speak at Ramapo College of New Jersey Wednesday, May 12 at 4:30 p.m. in Friends Hall (SC-219). "Myth, Reality and the ‘Real World’ in William Kennedy’s Fiction" will be his topic. There is no admission charge and the public is welcome.

Kennedy has published seven novels in his Albany Cycle including Ironweed, which won, in addition to the Pulitzer, the National Book Critics Circle Award and a PEN-Faulkner Award. He co-authored (with Francis Ford Coppola) the screenplay for The Cotton Club and wrote the screenplay for Ironweed. Other novels include The Ink Truck (1969), Legs (1975), Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game (1978), Quinn’s Book (1988), Very Old Bones (1992), and The Flaming Corsage (1996). His work has been translated into two dozen languages. More novels in the Albany Cycle are projected, including an untitled novel in progress on the political life in Albany between the World Wars.

Kennedy’s work and his association with his home city are the subject of two documentary films, William Kennedy’s Albany, aired nationally by PBS televsion; and Fortune Cookie, made for Canadian and French television. Before writing his novels, Kennedy worked as a journalist and was a founding editor of The San Juan Star, a daily newspaper in Puerto Rico. He taught creative writing and journalism at the State University at Albany from 1974 to 1982 and writing at Cornell University in 1982-83.

Funding for this lecture is provided by a grant from the Ramapo College Foundation. For more information, please call (201) 684-7050.