Hamilton College is currently hosting an International Writers Week through Saturday, March 2, with an international book fair, panel discussions and readings with literary guests from around the globe.
The three guests for the program will be A.S. Byatt, an English novelist; Kamila Shamsie, a Pakistani novelist and alumna of Hamilton College; and Ishion Hutchinson, a Jamaican poet and recent graduate of Cornell University. Each will have separate events focused on their work.
After the creative writing department received a donation, organizer and professor Tina Hall said, the school decided on an event that would invigorate the campus during the doldrums of late February.
“So far, everyone seems very excited about it, and I hope people are getting excited to see everyone who is coming,” Hall said. “We ask people for ideas, and we had a wish list of great international writers, and A.S. Byatt was at the top. She’s such a wonderful writer and an institution in terms of English novelists, and she is really quite wonderful and magical in the types of writing that she does, so we talked to her agent and we figured out a date. We were lucky enough to get two other great writers, and so it’s sort of a hodgepodge.”
Each of the readings and panels will last about one hour. All of the events Saturday will be accompanied by food, kicking off with a Jamaican breakfast at 10:30 a.m.
Saturday will also see the opening of the international book fair from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Taylor Science Fair Atrium. The fair will be a collection of books from international authors. The books were selected by asking staff from all departments of the college what their favorite non-American books were; the books come with a small card indicating who suggested it.
“It’s almost like a big book club,” Hall said.
There is no cost to attend any of the week’s events, which take place at Hamilton College, 198 College Hill Road, Clinton.
For a schedule of events and where on campus they will take place, visit www.hamilton.edu/creativewriting.
