DETROIT, Sept. 15, 2006 (PRIMEZONE) -- Marygrove College hosts the return of Detroit-area native and second-generation Greek-American author Jeffrey Eugenides on Sunday, October 29, 2006, at 4 p.m. in the Madame Cadillac Building in Detroit. In a presentation titled "'All Swirl and Hubbub': Jeffrey Eugenides and Detroit," he will read from his 2003 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Middlesex. A reception and book signing will follow the presentation. It is free and open to the public.
Eugenides was born in 1960 to Greek-American parents and raised in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. He received his bachelor's degree from Brown University and his MFA in creative writing from Stanford University. He has worked as a Detroit cabdriver, a busboy, a volunteer with Mother Theresa in Calcutta, a magazine writer, and a newsletter editor. His acclaimed first novel, The Virgin Suicides (1993), set in Grosse Pointe, became a major motion picture, directed by Sofia Coppola and released by Paramount Pictures in 2000. Eugenides has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 1991, an excerpt from The Virgin Suicides was awarded the Aga Khan Prize for fiction, and in 2003 Middlesex received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
"Expansive and radiantly generous. . .Deliriously American" --
The New York Times Book Review
"A towering achievement. . .(Eugenides) has emerged as the great
American writer that many of us suspected him of being." --
Los Angeles Times Book Review
This is a Defining Detroit event of Marygrove's Institute for Detroit Studies and the English and Modern Languages Department, an interdisciplinary series of public exhibits, lectures, performances, readings and discussions that explore different aspects of Detroit life, made possible with the support of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs and the National Endowment for the Arts. Previous presenters include Detroit poet laureate Naomi Long Madgett, novelist Joyce Carol Oates, historians Thomas Sugrue and Kevin Boyle, poets Philip Levine and Lawrence Joseph, and musical conductor and choirmaster Brazeal Dennard poet.
Eugenides' appearance is part of a fall 2006 collaborative series between Marygrove, the Matrix Theatre, the Downtown Detroit YMCA, Inside Out, and Wayne State University called Detroit Stories that records and presents drama, fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction and oral history.
For more information, call Dr. Frank Rashid at 313-927-1448 or visit www.marygrove.edu. A photo of Jeffrey Eugenides is available at http://www.marygrove.edu/news.
Marygrove College is an independent liberal arts college located at 8425 W. McNichols Rd. in Detroit. More than 1,200 students attend classes in its undergraduate and graduate programs in education, business, human resource management, social justice, social work, science, theater, music and the fine arts.
The Marygrove College logo is available at http://www.primezone.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=1666
EDITORS: A 300-dpi photograph of Jeffrey Eugenides can be found at www.marygrove.edu/news.