Purchase College Hosts Two Events with Bestselling Author Michael Chabon

Purchase College-SUNY will present two special events with Michael Chabon, the bestselling, Pulitzer prize-winning novelist: A Lecture on Weds., Nov. 1 from 4:30-6:00 p.m. and John Carter: A Screening and Conversation on Thurs., Nov. 2, from 4:30-7:15 p.m. The lecture, which will consider Chabon’s experience as a screenwriter for the feature film John Carter, will take place in the Music Building, Recital Hall. The following night, a screening of the film will be held in the Humanities Building, Lecture Hall. Both events, free and open to the public, are on the college’s campus (735 Anderson Hill Road, Purchase, NY).

One of the most acclaimed and popular contemporary American authors, Michael Chabon received a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and more than 30 other awards. The bestselling novelist is the author of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, A Model World, Wonder Boys, Werewolves in their Youth, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Summerland, The Final Solution, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, and many other novels.

Chabon was also one of the screenwriters for John Carter, a science fiction action film based on a novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs and released by Disney. The film, which cost around $350M to make, disappointed at the box office.

“The story of John Carter’s adaptation—its many starts and stops, its great expectations, its commercial failure—is an interesting one, and Michael Chabon has a distinctive perspective upon it,” said Anthony Domestico, assistant professor of literature at Purchase College. “He cherished Burroughs’s novels as a child, and his screenplay was a true labor of love. To hear a superb novelist think about filmic adaptation, and to hear how a wildly successful artist responds to a very public disappointment, will make for a fascinating few nights.”

Chabon was named Purchase College’s 2017-2018 Roy and Shirley Durst Distinguished Chair in Literature and is featured in a series of events at the college during the fall and spring semesters. The Durst Distinguished Lecture Series and the Roy and Shirley Durst Distinguished Chair in Literature are funded by the Roy and Shirley Durst Distinguished Chair in Literature Endowment. The mission of the Durst programs is to infuse the experience and intellect of leading writers into the Purchase community, while providing diverse opportunities for these writers to interact with students and influence campus life.

For more information, call 914.251.6550 or visit: https://www.purchase.edu/calendar/#!event_id/6214/view/event/date/20171101 (lecture) or

https://www.purchase.edu/calendar/#!event_id/6216/view/event/date/20171102 (film screening).