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Thomas Chair welcomes Barry Unsworth

Novelist Barry Unsworth has lived in his native England, in Finland, and in Italy. This semester, he is calling Gambier home.

Holder of the Richard L. Thomas Chair in Creative Writing this spring, Unsworth is the author of fourteen novels, including The Hide, Mooncranker's Gift, Pascali's Island, Stone Virgin, and Morality Play. He won the prestigious Booker Prize in 1992 for his novel Sacred Hunger.

"Barry Unsworth is one of the most important novelists writing in English today," said Associate Professor of English Sergei Lobanov-Rostovsky, chair of the English department. "His work engages with the idea of history and the ways in which our world is shaped by a past that we struggle to comprehend."

Unsworth and his wife, who is a native of Finland, permanently reside near Lake Trasimero in the middle of Italy. When he's not writing, he enjoys gardening. "We've got five acres of rough land, and there's quite a bit to do. We've got olives and vines and a big garden," Unsworth said in a Boldtype interview on RandomHouse.com.

Unsworth is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has held literary residencies at the universities of Durham, Newcastle, and Liverpool in Britain and Lund in Sweden. He was also a visiting professor at the Iowa Writers' Worskshop in Iowa City in 1998 and 1999.

"His presence at Kenyon is a wonderful opportunity for our students to work with a novelist who-like all great writers-has expanded our understanding of what literature can accomplish," said Lobanov-Rostovsky.

The Richard L. Thomas Chair in Creative Writing was established in 1998 when Richard Thomas, a 1935 graduate of the College and long-time member of the Board of Trustees, donated $1.5 million to endow it. It brings internationally recognized poets and fiction writers to Kenyon for one semester each academic year to teach creative writing workshops and literature courses. Past occupants of the Thomas Chair have included Claire Messud, Alan Shapiro, and John Kinsella. Lewis Hyde holds the chair every fall semester.