MANHATTAN — Greenwich Village's New School has played host to writers ranging from Robert Frost to Jhumpa Lahiri in its nearly 100-year history, and this week the university will welcome dozens of popular writers to two nights of National Book Critics Circle events.
A free reading Wednesday night at 6 p.m. will feature Jeffrey Eugenides — the author of "Middlesex", "The Virgin Suicides" and "The Marriage Plot"; Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa; John Jeremiah Sullivan, author of "Pulphead: Essays" and more than a dozen other authors up for awards in fiction, nonfiction, criticism, poetry, biography and autobiography.
The readings will take place at The New School's Tishman Auditorium at 66 W. 12th St.
Winners in each award category will be announced at a Thursday night ceremony, which is also free and open to the public.
Big-name writers who are up for awards and may appear at the ceremony include Jonathan Lethem, whose book "The Ecstasy of Influence" is up for the criticism award and Teju Cole, who was nominated for his book "Open City."
The 6 p.m. ceremony will also be held at Tishman Auditorium.
Tickets to a reception at the New School's Lang Center at 55 W. 13th St. after the ceremony cost $50 and can be purchased at the door or on the National Book Critics' Circle's website.
The board of directors of the National Book Critics Circle has been naming its picks for the best literature in English, published in the United States, since 1974, according to its website.
