WHO: Frank Lentricchia

WHAT: A fiction reading from "Lucchesi and the Whale," among other works

WHERE: Kelly Writers House, 3805 Locust Walk, Philadelphia

WHEN: Thursday, Nov. 21, 2002, 6-8 p.m.

In this third annual Gay Talese Lecture Series, Frank Lentricchia will read from his most recent works of fiction.

Frank Lentricchia is a professor of literature at Duke University and author of a number of seminal books in literary scholarship, including "After the New Criticism," "Critical Terms for Literary Study," "Introducing Don DeLillo," "Ariel and the Police" and "Modernist Quartet." He is also the author of a memoir, "The Edge of Night," and several works of fiction, including the novels "Johnny Critelli," "The Knifemen," "The Music of the Inferno" and "Lucchesi and the Whale." The New Yorker has described Lentricchia as "electric with ideas and feelings" and "an Italian tenor, pouring his beautiful vulnerability all over the room."

The annual Gay Talese Lecture Series was conceived of by the National Italian American Foundation, in conjunction with Penn's Kelly Writers House, in honor of Talese, who taught at the Kelly Writers House in 1999. Each year the Series brings one or several eminent Italian-American writers to Penn.

Additional information about the event or the Gay Talese Lecture Series is available at wh@english.upenn.edu.