News and Information
Emory University
Atlanta, GA 30322

Release date: February 24, 1999
Contact: Deb Hammacher, Assistant Director

NOTED BRITISH AUTHOR A.S. BYATT TO DELIVER ELLMANN LECTURES AT EMORY UNIVERSITY MARCH 28-31

Booker and Whitbread Prize-winning author A.S. Byatt will deliver this year's Richard Ellmann Lectures in Modern Literature at Emory March 28-31. The title for her series is "Fathers, Forefathers, Ancestors: The Surprising Renaissance of the British Historical Novel." She describes her lectures as "a kind of field study, by a practicing novelist, of ways of writing about the past which seem now possible, including history itself." She will look at the use of the immediate past as well as distant, imaginary pasts of 19th century fiction seen through modern eyes, and the recent explosion of contemporary British novelists delving into the past.

Byatt will give three public lectures and a reading/booksigning. The series will be enhanced by a presentation by Philip and Belinda Haas, creators of the film adaptation of Byatt's novel, Angels and Insects.

All events are free and open to the public. For additional information, call 404-727-6406 or e-mail mchiric@emory.edu.

o Saturday, March 27

Angels and Insects, the film adaptation of A.S. Byatt's novel, created by Philip and Belinda Haas. 208 White Hall, 480 Kilgo Circle, Emory. 7:30 p.m.

o Sunday, March 28

Angels and Insects, the film adaptation of A.S. Byatt's novel, created by Philip and Belinda Haas. 208 White Hall, 480 Kilgo Circle, Emory. Noon and 2 p.m.

A.S. Byatt will present "Fathers: Recent Fictions of the World Wars," the first part of her three-part lecture series entitled "Fathers, Forefathers, Ancestors: The Surprising Renaissance of the British Historical Novel."

Woodruff Health Sciences Administration Building, 1440 Clifton Rd. 4 p.m.

o Monday, March 29

Philip and Belinda Haas, screenwriters, producers and directors of the film version of A.S. Byatt's novel, Angels and Insects, will discuss the transformation of the novel into the film. 207 White Hall, 480 Kilgo Circle, Emory. 3 p.m.

A.S. Byatt will present "Forefathers: Writing the Past­­Writing History and Writing Fiction," the second part of her three-part lecture series entitled "Fathers, Forefathers, Ancestors: The Surprising Renaissance of the British Historical Novel." Goizueta Business School, 1300 Clifton Road, Emory. 8:15 p.m.

o Tuesday, March 30

A.S. Byatt will present "Ancestors: Some Modern Darwinian Fictions," the final lecture of her series entitled "Fathers, Forefathers, Ancestors: The Surprising Renaissance of the British Historical Novel." Goizueta Business School, 1300 Clifton Road, Emory. 8:15 p.m.

o Wednesday, March 31

A.S. Byatt will give a reading from her work and will sign books afterwards. Those who want books signed but cannot attend the reading may purchase books in advance at the Lullwater Bookstore in the Dobbs University Center and pick them up later. Glenn Memorial Auditorium, 1652 N. Decatur Rd. 8:15 p.m.

The Richard Ellmann Lectures in Modern Literature were endowed in honor of the literary achievement of Richard Ellmann (1918-1987), who served Emory University as the first Robert W. Woodruff Professor from 1980­87. For more than 40 years his writing set the highest standards of critical inquiry and humanistic scholarship. He was one of the most noted literary biographers of Oscar Wilde and James Joyce as well as eminent scholar of W.B. Yeats, Samuel Beckett, T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens and other modern authors.

Ellmann's public lectures were unparalleled in their appeal to a world-wide audience of readers, for he always spoke in a language that invited the reader to share his personal engagement with serious literature. Lecturers are invited in that spirit by a panel of international scholars. Past participants as lecturers or invited readers are Seamus Heaney (1988), Dennis Donohue and Anthony Hecht (1990), Helen Vendler and Jorie Graham (1994), and Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Wole Soyinka (1996).