E.L. Doctorow, one of America’s great masters of the novel, will discuss “Notes on the History of Fiction” March 27 at 6:30 p.m. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Doctorow, the Frey Foundation Distinguished Visiting Professor in the College of Arts and Sciences, will give a free public lecture in the Hanes Art Center auditorium. His discussion will be preceded by a book sale and signing at 5:30 p.m. in the Hanes Art Center lobby.
The talk is co-sponsored by the College; the curriculum in peace, war and defense; the Institute for the Arts and Humanities; the department of history and the Center for the Study of the American South.
Doctorow’s novel, “The March” (2005), won the National Book Critics’ Circle award for fiction (his second) and the PEN/Faulkner Award (his second). The book was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and a nominee for the National Book Award. Set during General William Tecumseh Sherman’s Civil War march through Georgia and the Carolinas in 1864-1865, Doctorow got the idea for the novel after reading UNC historian Joseph Glatthaar’s account of the march. (Glatthaar’s book is “The March to the Sea and Beyond.”) An expert on Civil War history, Glatthaar is acknowledged in Doctorow’s novel, and he invited Doctorow to UNC for a symposium on the Civil War.
“The Civil War Symposium in Honor of Alan Stephenson” on March 29 in Carroll Hall 111 is a tribute to Stephenson, who received a bachelor’s degree in history from UNC in 1967. He established the Stephenson Distinguished Professorship in Civil War Studies now held by Glatthaar. The symposium is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Jackie Gorman at (919) 962-3093, jackie@unc.edu.
Doctorow won the National Book Award for “World’s Fair” (1985). He won his first Pen/Faulkner Award for “Billy Bathgate” (1989), which was made into a film in 1991. “Ragtime” (1975) won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction and was made into a film in 1981 and a musical in 1998.
The Frey Foundation Professorship was established in 1989 to bring to campus distinguished leaders from government, public policy and the arts. David Gardner Frey chairs the foundation established by his parents, Edward J. and Frances Frey of Grand Rapids, Mich., in 1974. He earned bachelor’s and law degrees at Carolina in 1964 and 1967.
Limited parking for the Frey lecture is available on campus in the Swain, Morehead and Ramshead lots; commercial parking is available on Rosemary Street.
