INDIANAPOLIS — Celebrated author and champion of literary culture Ann Patchett will present the 36th annual Marian McFadden Memorial Lecture, sponsored by The Indianapolis Public Library Foundation, on Friday, April 26 at 7 p.m. at the North Central High School Auditorium, 1801 E. 86th Street.
Patchett was named in 2012 as one of Time magazine’s Most Influential People in the World for her efforts on behalf of the literary community. Her six novels and two nonfiction works have earned her numerous awards, including the Orange Prize and PEN/Faulkner Award for Bel Canto, the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for Taft, and the New York Times Notable Book of the Year for The Patron Saint of Liars. Her most recent novel, State of Wonder, was hailed by The Washington Post in 2011 as “the smartest, most exciting novel of the summer.”
In 2011, when her hometown of Nashville, Tennessee was left without a single bookstore after online retailers drove out the big box chains, Patchett opened Parnassus Books, a new refuge for the written word in the old “Athens of the South.” The daughter of novelist Jeanne Ray, Patchett has served on the board of the Nashville Public Library Foundation and has been a contributor to many publications, including the Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s Magazine, Gourmet, the New York Times, Vogue, and The Washington Post.
Booksales will be available and author autographing will follow the lecture. Call 275-4700 for more information about this free Library program.
