Author of ‘Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil’ at Arsht Hall April 27

John Berendt

9:12 a.m., March 12, 2004--Award-winning author John Berendt will be the guest speaker at the University of Delaware Library Associates annual dinner Tuesday, April 27, in Arsht Hall, at 2700 Pennsylvania Ave. on UD’s Wilmington campus.

Berendt’s “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story” became a New York Times bestseller six weeks after its publication in 1994. The book appeared on The New York Times list for more than four years and sold more than 2.5 million copies in hardcover.

The April 27 dinner is open to the public but reservations are required. Dinner prices are $72 per person for members of the University of Delaware Library Associates and $92 per person for guests. Refreshments will be available at 6 p.m., followed by dinner at 7 p.m.

Invitations are available by sending an e-mail to [UDLA@udel.edu] or calling the Office of the Director of Libraries at 831-2231.

Berendt’s book, which took seven years to complete, won the 1994 Southern Book Award and was one of three finalists for the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction. Twenty-four foreign editions are now in print in several countries, including Brazil, Japan, Germany, Spain, Italy, France, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Croatia.

Berendt was born in New York in 1939 and graduated with honors in 1961 from Harvard College, where he served on the editorial board of the Harvard Lampoon. From 1961 to 1969, he was an associate editor at Esquire and later wrote and produced for David Frost’s and Dick Cavett’s television shows. He was the editor of New York magazine from 1977-79 and wrote a monthly column for Esquire from 1982-94.

Article by Martin Mbugua

E-mail this article

To learn how to subscribe to UDaily, click here.