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 Internationally Acclaimed Canadian Author Jane Urquhart to Deliver Nineteenth Annual Margaret Laurence Lecture at TrentFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE November 5 Event is Free and Open to the Public Monday, November 3, 2008, Peterborough Returning to Trent University for the fifth time, internationally acclaimed Canadian novelist and poet, Jane Urquhart, will deliver the Nineteenth Annual Margaret Laurence Lecture on Wednesday, November 5 at 8 p.m. in the Champlain College Lecture Hall, Room S307 on the Symons campus. In her lecture, entitled “Looking at the Work”, Ms. Urquhart will be discussing the tendency of readers to look too much at the author and not at the work. She will also explore the visual aspects of both reading and writing and will discuss landscape and the role it plays in life and literature. “Like Margaret Laurence, Jane Urquhart is fascinated by and committed to the ways in which we inhabit place, and in challenging received notions of gendered and other identities,” says Dr. Michele Lacombe, Canadian Studies professor at Trent. “Like Margaret Laurence, she is also known for her generosity to students, readers, and fellow writers. It is a pleasure and an honour to welcome Jane Urquhart as the 2008 Margaret Laurence lecturer.” Jane Urquhart is the author of five internationally acclaimed novels, including The Whirlpool, which received Le prix du meilleur livre étranger, the Best Foreign Book Award, in France; Away, winner of the Trillium Award and a finalist for the prestigious International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award; The Underpainter, winner of the Governor General's Award and a finalist for the Rogers Communications Writers' Trust Fiction Prize; and The Stone Carvers, a finalist for The Giller Prize and the Governor General's Award, and long-listed for the Booker Prize. Her most recent novel, A Map of Glass, was a finalist for a regional Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book. Ms. Urquhart is also the author of a collection of short fiction, Storm Glass, and four books of poetry. Her work has been translated into many foreign languages and she has received numerous honorary doctorates from Canadian universities. She is also a Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France and an Officer of the Order of Canada. The annual Margaret Laurence Lecture honours Trent’s fourth chancellor, and acknowledges her contributions to literature, feminism, ecology, and the peace movement. Financial support for the 2008 lecture is provided by the Women's Studies Department, the Margaret Laurence Lecture Fund and the Canadian Studies Directorate, Heritage Canada. The lecture is free and open to the public. A reception will follow the lecture in the Champlain College Senior Common Room. -30- For more information, please contact: |
