Release date: Sept. 12, 2003
Contact: Deb Hammacher, Associate Director, University Media Relations,
at 404-727-0644 or dhammac@emory.edu

Irish Poet, Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney to Give Rare Public Reading at Emory

WHO: Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney
WHAT: Reading from his own works in honor of William M. Chace on his retirement from the presidency of Emory University
WHEN: 5 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 23
WHERE: Emerson Concert Hall, Schwartz Center for Performing Arts, 1700 N. Decatur Rd., Emory.
COST: Free and open to the public. 404-727-7620

Seamus Heaney, who received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1995, will give a rare public reading from his works in honor of William M. Chace upon his retirement from the presidency of Emory University. Chace, a scholar of the Irish poet and author James Joyce, served nine years as the university's 18th president.

This past May Heaney gave the keynote address at Emory's commencement ceremony and received an honorary doctor of humane letters degree. His ties to Emory go back many years, dating to his selection as the inaugural Richard Ellmann Lecturer in Modern Literature in 1988. The lectures were published as "The Place of Writing," and his notes for the series were deposited in Emory's special collections, a seed that has grown into what many scholars consider the finest archive of contemporary Irish poetry anywhere.

Heaney, who was born in County Derry in Northern Ireland in 1939, is widely regarded as one of the finest English language contemporary poets. His critically acclaimed first book, "Death of a Naturalist," marked the arrival of a major new poetic voice. During his distinguished career he has published numerous collections of poems, translations and works of literary criticism.

In 1984 he was named Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Poetry at Harvard University, and in 1989 he was named to the prestigious Chair of Poetry at Oxford University. The year after receiving the Nobel Prize for literature, his collection of poems "The Spirit Level" was selected as the Whitbread Book of the Year. His 1999 verse translation of "Beowulf" was an international bestseller, the same year that his collected poems "Opened Ground" were published. More recently, Heaney was awarded the 2003 Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism for "Finders Keepers: Selected Prose 1971-2001."

Emory University is a highly selective, comprehensive research university known for its academically demanding undergraduate college, highly ranked professional schools and world-class research facilities. For more than a decade, Emory has been named one of the country's top 25 national universities by U.S. News & World Report. In addition to its nine schools, the university encompasses The Carter Center, Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Emory Healthcare, a comprehensive metropolitan health care system.

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