Alison Lurie, the F.J. Whiton Professor of American Literature Emerita, is shown, with her dog Sliver, in the backyard of her family's home in White Plains, N.J., in a family photo taken in the summer of 1947. The photo is part of an exhibit on Lurie's career in the Kroch Library Exhibition Gallery.
Last month, Alison Lurie's distinguished teaching career at Cornell was honored with an afternoon reading by four published authors, all of whom studied under Lurie during their passage through the university's creative writing program.
Beginning today, the literary career of the Pulitzer Prize winner is celebrated with a Cornell Library exhibit titled "Alison Lurie: Writer at Work." The exhibit opens with a video screening of Foreign Affairs at 4 p.m. today in the Willard Straight Hall Theatre. Following the screening, a reception will be held in the Carl A. Kroch Library Exhibition Gallery, level 2B, at 5:30 p.m. Both events are free and open to the public.
Lurie will attend both the video screening and reception and sign copies of her books at the reception. The book sale and signing is co-hosted by the Cornell Campus Store and Henry Holt, Lurie's most recent publisher.
Foreign Affairs, a film treatment of Lurie's 1984 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, first aired on TNT in 1993. It tells the story of an unlikely middle-aged love affair between a spinsterish professor of children's literature at the fictional Corinth University and a sanitation engineer.
"Alison Lurie: Writer at Work," will be on display in the Kroch Library gallery through the end of January. Hours during the academic term are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. and Saturday, 1-5 p.m. The gallery will be closed Saturday, Oct. 9, during fall break and also Nov. 25-28 for Thanksgiving. Hours also are adjusted during the university's winter break, Dec. 24-Jan. 16.
The Kroch Library exhibition documents the author's literary life, using materials drawn from Lurie's manuscripts and papers, many of which she has given to the library's Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections. It begins with childhood photographs and examples of books she read as a child, and traces her literary career from some of her earliest published works to The Last Resort, her 10th book of fiction, published in 1998 by Henry Holt of New York.
The display allows viewers to examine Lurie's creative process at work, from the first stages of research through editorial revision, to publication and reviews. Letters from fans and critics and an array of translations and adaptations attest to her enduring popularity.
Lurie's career at Cornell is well-represented through Polaroid snapshots she has taken of her students over the years and photographs of her making news in the Cornell community. Visitors also will have an opportunity to listen to a recording of her reading an excerpt from Foreign Affairs.
Lorna Knight, curator of manuscripts in the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, regrets that space in the library's gallery limited Lurie's exhibit to only 11 display cases.
"There's far more to show and tell about Alison Lurie's writing life than our gallery space allows," said Knight, who curated the exhibit. "I hope that, with this exhibition, greater attention will be drawn to her literary manuscripts. They are a veritable treasure for researchers, readers and fans."
For more information, call the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections at 255-3530 or contact Knight through e-mail: lmk22@cornell.edu.
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