Thursday, November 12, 2009

Ben Fountain, visiting writer at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, will read from his book of short stories Brief Encounters with Che Guevara (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2006) 7 p.m., Thurs., Nov. 19, in Kenan Hall 1111 on the UNCW campus.

The public is invited to this free event. A reception will follow, along with a book signing courtesy of Pomegranate Books.

Recent praise for Brief Encounters with Che Guevara:

Each of these eight stories is as rich as a novel . . . Heartbreaking, absurd, deftly-drawn.
— New York Times Book Review

Ben Fountain writes the kind of stories that Robert Louis Stevenson, Joseph Conrad, and Graham Greene used to write . . . full of complex adventure and off-balance humor.
— San Diego Union-Tribune

Fountain . . . gets his message across without forsaking characterization and vivid descriptiveness . . . a revealing view of the human condition.
— Miami Herald

A native North Carolinian, Ben Fountain earned a B.A. in English at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and a law degree from Duke University. His fiction has appeared in the Paris Review, Harper's, Zoetrope: All Story, Shenandoah and Southwest Review. He has been awarded the PEN/Hemingway Award, the O. Henry Prize and two Pushcart Prizes. He lives in Dallas, Texas.

For further information on UNCW's programs and events in creative writing, please contact the Department of Creative Writing at 910.962.7063.