April 5, 2010
York College will welcome novelist Michael Thomas for a reading and discussion of his work at 7 p.m., April 15, in DeMeester Recital Hall, Evelyn and Earle Wolf Hall. The event is open to the public free of charge. Thomas will be available to sign copies of his book following his presentation.
The 2010 York College Writer-in-Residence, Thomas is the author of “Man Gone Down,” a beautifully written, insightful, and widely acclaimed first novel about a young black father of three in a biracial marriage trying to claim a piece of the American dream. The book was selected as one of the New York Times’ top five novels of the year and was awarded Notable Book Awards by the Times as well as the San Francisco Chronicle. In June 2009, Thomas was awarded the prestigious IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, one of the most lucrative literary prizes in the world.
Thomas holds a bachelor’s degree from Hunter College, studied in the graduate program at Brown University, and completed his master’s degree in creative writing at Warren Wilson College. His work draws upon his wide array of life experiences in New York, as a bike messenger, as a restaurant employee, and as a construction worker. It also draws upon the literary traditions of Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man” and the stark reality portrayed in the work of T. S. Eliot. Thomas currently teaches creative writing at Hunter College. His memoir about four generations of men in his family, “The Broken King,” is scheduled to be published in 2010.
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