LITERATURE + LECTURES

Welcome to the 30th anniversary season of the Inprint Margarett Root Brown Reading Series, considered one of the nation’s leading literary programs. Over the years, the Series has presented more than 300 of the world's great writers, including winners of five Nobel Prizes, 49 Pulitzer Prizes, 45 National Book Awards, and seven Booker Prize winners, as well as 13 U. S. Poet Laureates.

The 2010/2011 lineup continues the trend of literary greatness, presenting nine of the best contemporary writers. The season runs from September to April and consists of seven evenings, each beginning with a reading by one or two of the featured writers, followed by an on-stage interview conducted by a local writer or scholar. The evenings conclude with a book sale and signing, where audience members can meet the authors. All readings take place in Downtown Houston’s Theater District and begin at 7:30 pm.

Friday, December 3, 2010, in the Cullen Theater, Wortham Center, the Inprint Brown Reading Series presents Salman Rushdie, (pictured, photo by Beowulf Sheehan).

Please note new venue: Jones Hall, 615 Louisiana.

SALMAN RUSHDIE, one of the most thought-provoking writers of our time, is author of the international bestseller Midnight’s Children, for which he won the Booker Prize (Britain’s top literary award) in 1981, the Booker of Bookers in 1993, and the Best of the Booker in 2008.

The author of more than ten novels, his other major works include Shame, The Satanic Verses, which attracted a great deal of attention (including death threats), and The Moor’s Last Sigh. He has also published four works of non-fiction, a collection of short stories, and edited two fiction anthologies.

Rushdie was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to literature, and The Times of London ranked Rushdie 13th on its list of "the 50 greatest British writers since 1945." Rushdie, called “one of the most intelligent writers in the English language” by The Boston Globe, is currently working on the film version of Midnight's Children.

He will read from his new novel, Luka and the Fire of Life (to be released in November), which is a companion to his earlier work, Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Rushdie wrote the book for his youngest son and hopes it “demolishes the boundary between ‘adult’ and ‘children’s’ literature.”