Princeton Library To Host Book Gold Medal Tour

Candace Braun

Four winners of the National Book Award will visit the Jewish Center of Princeton on Thursday, February 19, at 7:30 p.m. Among those recently honored are Princeton poet C.K. Williams, for his collection of poems, The Singing.

Carlos Eire, Polly Horvath, and Shirley Hazzard will speak along with Mr. Williams at an event co-sponsored by Princeton Public Library, the National Book Foundation, and Bloomberg.

The free program is part of the National Book Foundation Gold Medal Tour, of which Princeton is the second stop. The tour will also travel to New York City, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.

"We're so pleased to welcome the Gold Medal Tour to Princeton for a third straight year,'' said Susan Roth, Readers Services coordinator at the library. "The tour stop is always a special event, but this year it will be all the more so since Princeton's C.K. Williams is the recipient of this year's Poetry Award."

Born in Newark and educated at the University of Pennsylvania, Mr. Williams is the author of numerous collections, including Repair, winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize, and Flesh and Blood, winner of the 1987 National Book Critics Circle Award. Currently he teaches in the creative writing program at Princeton University.

Ms. Hazzard won the Fiction Award for The Great Fire, her first work of fiction in more than 20 years. Set in World War II, the book relays stories of the lives of men and women struggling during various wartime events, including the bombing of Hiroshima.

Ms. Hazzard is the author of three novels, two of which were National Book Award finalists. She has also published two collections of short stories and several nonfiction works. She lives in New York.

Mr. Eire received the Nonfiction Award for his memoir, Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy. A professor of history and religious studies at Yale University, Mr. Eire is the author of From Madrid to Purgatory: The Art and Craft of Dying in Sixteenth Century Spain, and War Against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin.

Ms. Horvath's book, The Canning Season, is her sixth book for young readers. Winner of the award for Young Adult Literature, it tells the story of an abandoned child sent to live with two distant relatives in a big, lonely house. Other books she has written include Everything on a Waffle, a Newberry Honor Book, and The Trolls, a National Book Award finalist in 1999.

A native of Kalamazoo, Mich., Ms. Horvath lives in Metchosin, British Columbia.

All authors will read from, discuss, and answer questions about their prize-winning books on February 19 at The Jewish Center of Princeton, 435 Nassau Street. A public reception with the authors will follow.

For more information, call (609) 924-9529 or visit www.princetonlibrary.org.