April 2, 2014 - 9:00am
The Canadian author of an award-winning non-fiction book examining one of the world’s most famous painters and his beloved masterpiece will be at Vancouver Island University (VIU) Tuesday, April 8 to take part in a lively interview on the Malaspina Theatre stage.
Ross King, who won the 2012 Governor General’s Award for Nonfiction for Leonardo and The Last Supper, will be interviewed by Dr. John Black, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences in a free public event beginning at 7 pm.
King is the bestselling author of five books on Italian, French and Canadian art and history. He has also published two historical novels, Domino (1995) and Ex-Libris (1998), and edited a collection of Leonardo da Vinci's fables, jokes and riddles. Translated into more than a dozen languages, his books have been nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award, the Charles Taylor Prize, and the National Award for Arts Writing. In 2006 he received his first Governor General’s Award for The Judgment of Paris. He won the Book Sense Non-Fiction Book of the Year in the United States for Brunelleschi's Dome, a book that was also on the bestseller lists of the New York Times, the Boston Globe and the San Francisco Chronicle.
A review for King's Leonardo and the Last Supper in The Globe and Mail noted: "King tells us everything that any non-specialist would ever want to know about The Last Supper and the events surrounding its creation… This work, even in its dilapidated, faded current state, can still tempt some of its viewers to explain, as Ross King has done well, its peculiar magic."
Born and raised in Canada, King has lived in England since moving to London for post-doctoral studies in 1992. He lectures frequently in both Europe and North America, and has given guided tours of the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence and of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. He lives near Oxford with his wife Melanie King, also a writer and historian.
The event is co-presented by Arts & Humanities and Social Sciences. King’s presentation will be of particular interest to Liberal Studies students who will be heading to Italy in May on a Study Abroad trip.
Courtesy parking in VIU’s Parking Lot E has been arranged for attendees, beginning at 6:15 pm.
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Media Contact:
Shari Bishop Bowes, Communications Officer, Vancouver Island University
P:250.740.6443 C: 250.618.1535 E: Communications@viu.ca T: @viunews
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