The Sun Valley Center for the Arts has confirmed that novelist Jonathan Franzen, whose book The Corrections (2001) was a major critical and popular success, will be the first speaker in its 2011–12 Lecture Series.
The Corrections, winner of a National Book Award a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, was one of the past decade’s best-selling novels. Franzen’s newest book, Freedom, was published in August.
Franzen will speak in Ketchum on October 9, 2011. Ticket on-sale date and price have not yet been determined; to stay informed sign up for Hot Dates, The Center’s eNewsletter, at www.sunvalleycenter.org.
Inaugurated in 2008, The Center Lecture series has brought such prominent authors as Salman Rushdie, Junot Díaz, Michael Chabon, Michael Pollan and David Sedaris to the Wood River Valley. Prior to creating the Lecture Series, The Center presented other well known writers, including Louise Erdrich, Terry Tempest Williams, Barbara Ehrenreich and E. O. Wilson, as stand-alone speakers or as a part of multidisciplinary projects.
“The audience response when we brought in authors, scientists and other experts convinced us that a lecture series would be a welcome addition to the intellectual and cultural life of our central Idaho community,” says Britt Udesen, The Center’s Director of Education and Humanities. “To say that we have been pleased with the community response—and thrilled at the caliber of speakers we have been able to attract—would be an understatement.”
This year’s Lecture Series has already featured Ira Glass, host of NPR’s This American Life, clean water advocate Maude Barlow on Nov. 4, Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of New York’s Hayden Planetarium. Upcoming are Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser on Feb. 24 – who will speak on the threats from nuclear weapons; and Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for President George W. Bush, on Mar. 10.
Individual tickets for this year’s lectures can be purchased online at www.sunvalleycenter.org. The best way to keep on top of when the tickets will go on sale for Jonathan Franzen and other
future lectures is to sign up online for The Center’s eNewsletter, Hot Dates, for full details about dates, prices and locations.