The Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah welcomes author Ben Fountain for the 2020 David P. Gardner Lecture in the Humanities and Fine Arts. Fountain will discuss his transition from law to literature, his work in a range of literary genres and the value of employing literary techniques in nonfiction texts. He also will reflect upon the need for writers to respond to and impact contemporary issues. The lecture will be followed by a book signing.
A former practicing attorney, Fountain wrote “Brief Encounters with Che Guevara,” which won the PEN/Hemingway Award and the Barnes & Noble Discover Award for fiction and the novel “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk,” winner of the National Book Critics’ Circle Award and a finalist for the National Book Award. He also created the radio piece “Haiti is Destiny” for NPR’s This American Life. Fountain’s series of essays published in The Guardian about the 2016 U.S. presidential election was subsequently nominated by its editors for the Pulitzer Prize in Commentary. These essays evolved into his collection, “Beautiful Country Burn Again: Democracy, Rebellion, and Revolution.”
Reserve tickets here.