Press Releases

February 11, 2002
Gregory Rabassa to Receive John Steinbeck Award at Meet the Writers Book Fair

College Recognizes Literary Contributions of East End Writers

Contact:
Patricia Conway (PR@southampton.liu.edu)
(631) 287 8313
Fax: (631) 283 4081

Translator Gregory Rabassa will be the 14th recipient of the John Steinbeck Award when Southampton College of Long Island University hosts the 25th annual John Steinbeck "Meet the Writers" Book Fair & Art Preview on Friday, May 10, 2002 at the Elaine Benson Gallery in Bridgehampton, New York from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. Admission to the event is $20.

Writers of new books will meet the public and autograph their works at the rain-or-shine event, which benefits the John Steinbeck Project at Southampton College and is known as the traditional kick-off of the Hamptons summer season. East End writers who have had books published since last May and are interested in participating in this year's event should call Victoria Fabisch at (631) 287-8477.

In honor of the 25th anniversary of the book fair and the 100th anniversary of John Steinbeck's birth, a commemorative journal will be given away at the book fair. The journal is a compilation of the project's history, photographs from the first 25 years, and excerpts from the literary works of past award winners.

Dr. Rabassa is a distinguished professor of Romance languages and comparative literature at Queens College. He has translated over 40 works from Spanish and Portuguese into English, including the works of Julio Cortazar, Mario Vargas Llosa, Jorge Amado, Octavio Paz, Joachim Maria Machado de Assis, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. He received the National Book Award for translation in 1967 for Hopscotch by Cortazar, and the nomination for One Hundred Years of Solitude and The Autumn of the Patriarch by Garcia Marquez. Garcia Marquez has called Rabassa the "best Latin American writer in the English language."

Past recipients of the John Steinbeck Award include E.L. Doctorow, Lanford Wilson, Peter Matthiessen, Kurt Vonnegut, Terrence McNally, Betty Friedan, David Ignatow, Wilfred Sheed, Edward Albee, James Salter, Susan Isaacs, Dava Sobel, and Kenneth Koch.

Since its inception in 1977, the John Steinbeck Project has raised funds for Southampton College of Long Island University, which have been used to establish a Visiting Writer's Program, the annual Steinbeck Lecture, student writing awards and scholarships, and acquisitions for the College Library.