Acclaimed Author to Visit Sept. 30

Saïd Sayrafiezadeh, New Yorker writer and author of the memoir “When Skateboards Will be Free,” will be giving a reading at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 30 in the University Art Gallery as part of the Clayton B. Ofstad Readings Series.

Sayrafiezadeh is the author of the short story collection “Brief Encounters with the Enemy,” which is currently a finalist for PEN/Robert W. Bingham Fiction Prize. He also received a Whiting Writers' Award for his critically-acclaimed memoir “When Skateboards Will Be Free.” The memoir, which recounts his childhood as the son of an Iranian father and a Jewish-American mother, was selected as one of the 10 best books of the year by Dwight Garner of The New York Times. His short stories and personal essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Granta, McSweeney’s and The New York Times. He was the recipient of a fellowship from the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library and teaches at Hunter College and NYU.

The event is free and refreshments will be served.