World Literature Lecture Series

Join us for a series of lectures on authors from around the world, presented by faculty from CU Boulder and Boulder area literati!

This lecture series is FREE and open to everybody! Please register in advance. Refreshments will be served. *Authors will not be present at the lectures in this series*

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Monday, September 21st, 2026 at 6:30pm

Marguerite Duras

Marguerite Duras (1914–1996) was a French novelist, playwright, screenwriter, essayist, and filmmaker. Her best-selling, highly fictionalized autobiographical work L’Amant (1984), translated into English as The Lover, describes her youthful affair with a Chinese-Vietnamese man. The Lover won the Prix Goncourt in 1984.

Presented by Audrey Burba, Assistant Teaching Professor, Humanities & French

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Monday, October 26th, 2026 at 6:30pm

Rumi

Rumi (1207–1273) was a Sufi mystic, poet, and founder of the Islamic brotherhood known as the Mevlevi Order. Rumi is an influential figure in Sufism, and his thought and works loom large both in Persian literature and mystic poetry in general. Rumi’s best-known work is the six-volume poem The Masnavi.

Presented by Aun Hasan Ali, Associate Professor of Islamic Studies, Religious Studies

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Monday, February 22nd, 2027 at 6:30pm

MS Esendal

Memduh Şevket Esendal (1883–1952) was a Turkish diplomat, politician, and writer whose understated, observational fiction chronicles the everyday social fabric of late-Ottoman and early-Republican Turkey. His spare style and dry wit place him among the most distinctive voices of modern Turkish prose. Presenter Etkin Hanson is the translator of MS Esendal’s work.

Presented by Etkin Hanson, Lecturer, Creative Writing, Literary Translation, Department of English

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Monday, April 5th, 2027 at 6:30pm

W. G. Sebald

W. G. Sebald (1944–2001) was a German writer and academic. Sebald’s works are largely concerned with the themes of memory and loss of memory. They are, in particular, attempts to reconcile himself with, and deal in literary terms with, the trauma of the Second World War and its effect on the German people.

Presented by Petger Schaberg, Associate Teaching Professor, Program for Writing & Rhetoric