Russell Banks and Caryl Phillips In Conversation: Giovanni’s Room

Not many people have ever died of love. But multitudes have perished, and are perishing every hour–and in the oddest places!–for the lack of it.” Issued in mid-century France by what The New York Times described as one of the “lesser and more distasteful characters” in James Baldwin’s ambitious second novel Giovanni’s Room, this remarkable observation is arguably the central concern of this trademark, but in many ways, singular, offering in Baldwin’s fictional canon. More still, it discloses the moral and existential terrain of this lasting exploration of the perils and necessity of human connection, the dangers of American innocence, and the experiential torment that too often accompanies the label of homosexuality. Join acclaimed novelists Russell Banks and Caryl Phillips for a fascinating conversation about this major work.

The evening begins with an introduction by Mary Gordon, Millicent C. McIntosh Professor in English and Writing, Barnard College.

Russell Banks is the internationally acclaimed author of eighteen works of fiction, including the novels Continental Drift, Rule of the Bone, The Book of Jamaica and Lost Memory of Skin, as well as six short story collections, most recently A Permanent Member of the Family. Two of his novels, The Sweet Hereafter and Affliction, have been adapted into award-winning films.  Banks has been a PEN/Faulkner Finalist (Affliction, Cloudsplitter, Lost Memory of Skin) and a Pulitzer Prize Finalist (Continental Drift, Cloudsplitter). His work has received numerous other awards and has been widely translated and anthologized.  Banks is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was New York State Author (2004-2008).  He lives in Miami, Florida and in upstate New York with his wife, the poet Chase Twichell.

Caryl Phillips was born in St. Kitts, West Indies, and brought up in England. He is the author of numerous books of non-fiction and fiction. Dancing in the Dark won the 2006 PEN/Beyond Margins Award, and A Distant Shore won the 2004 Commonwealth Writers Prize. His other awards include the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, a Lannan Literary Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Crossing the River, which was also short-listed for the Booker Prize. He has written extensively for the stage, television, and film, and is a regular contributor to newspapers and magazines on both sides of the Atlantic. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and holds honorary doctorates from a number of universities. He has taught at universities in Singapore, Ghana, Sweden and Barbados and is currently Professor of English at Yale University. His new novel, The Lost Child, will be published in Spring

THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO ALL. RSVP REQUIRED.