WEBVTT

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It is my great
pleasure, this evening,

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to introduce Manuel Muñoz, who
we have been very fortunate

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to include on our fiction
faculty this year.

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Manuel is the author of two
collections of short stories,

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so far, Zigzagger and The Faith
Healer of Olive Avenue, which

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was shortlisted for the 2007
Frank O'Connor International

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Short Story Prize.

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He's also the recipient
of a 2006 National

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Endowment for the Arts
Literature Fellowship

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and is currently a 2008 fellow
in fiction with the New York

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Foundation for the Arts.

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His work has appeared in
numerous publications,

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including the New York Times,
Rush Hour, Swink, Epoch,

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Glimmer Train, Edinburgh
Review, and Boston Review

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and has aired on National Public
Radio's "Selected Shorts."

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We have just received
news, happily,

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that Manuel has received,
for 2008, a Whiting Writer's

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Award, which is a very
prestigious award,

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awarded each year to the ten
most important emerging writers

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in the country.

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And he joins such company as
previous winners Denis Johnson,

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Jorie Graham, Mark Doty, Jeffrey
Eugenides, our own David Foster

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Wallace, and others.

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Manuel is a writer's writer, in
that he understands the craft,

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beautifully.

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He understands the
kinds of things

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that writers, who
are alert to such,

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point of view, release
of info, voice,

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all the kinds of technical
things that we stand in awe of.

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He understands
them well enough so

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that he can break those rules.

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And it's quite clear that
he knows what he's doing.

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He's much admired as a
writer by other writers,

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but he's also a
writer for everyone.

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He creates a very specific
world in his fiction.

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In The Faith Healer
of Olive Avenue,

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for example, the world of
Gold Avenue is as specific

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and fully realized as
Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County,

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for example.

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Too often, writers who write
from such a specific world

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are subject to dreaded
terms, like regional,

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or some such other modifier.

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But not Manuel.

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When we read him, we
instantly recognize

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that he's writing from
a world to the world.

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And we recognize that we're
in the presence of one

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of those rare writers who's
able to, as Aristotle put it,

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"create those
concrete universals,"

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to give us a world
that, while it's his,

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also magically becomes ours.

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Manuel.

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[APPLAUSE]

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