Norman Mailer and Richard Wilbur, two titans of American writing, will talk at Penn about their experiences following WWII as American writers in Paris.

The two prize-winning authors (They each won a National Book Award and two Pulitzers.) will speak Friday, Sept. 27, 3 to 4:30 p.m. in the Rainey Auditorium of Penn's University Museum, in honor of Professor of English Robert Lucid, who has just retired after 32 years of teaching and service.

Mailer, whose feisty public persona is as well-known as his writing, successfully developed a form of journalism that conveys actual events with the subjective richness and imaginative complexity of the novel. While enrolled at the Sorbonne, in Paris, he wrote The Naked and the Dead (1948), hailed immediately as one of the finest American novels to come out of World War II. Both his fiction and nonfiction critiqued the centralized power structure of 20th-century America.

Poet Richard Wilbur, who is also known for his wit as a translator, a teacher, a Broadway lyricist, a critic, and editor, and an author of children's books, has won many honors for his poetry since the publication of his first volume, The Beautiful Changes (1947). His other poetry titles include Ceremony, Things of This World, Advice to a Prophet, Walking to Sleep, and The Mind Reader. A former president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters he was recently made a chevalier of the Ordre des Palmes Academiques in Paris. On Sept. 1, 1987 Wilbur became the United States' second Poet Laureate.

During his three decades at Penn, Robert Lucid received both the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching and the Ira Abrams Award. He was chairman of Penn's Collegiate Planning Board, chairman of the Council of Undergraduate Deans, chairman of the Steinberg Symposium Program, and chairman of the Council of Faculty in Residence.

The colloquium at Rainey Auditorium, 3260 South St., is free and open to the public. A reception in honor of Robert Lucid, open to members of the Penn community, will begin at 4:45 p.m. in Hill House, 3333 Walnut St.

Return to Compass Features for September 24, 1996