Pulitzer Prize Winner Jeffrey Eugenides will Speak at Chicago’s National Hellenic Museum on December 5, 2024

Pulitzer Prize-winning Greek American novelist Jeffrey Eugenides will speak at the National Hellenic Museum (NHM) in Chicago’s Greektown neighborhood on Thursday, December 5, 2024, from 7;00-8:30 p.m.  

Eugenides is the author of three novels. His first, The Virgin Suicides, published in 1993, is now considered a modern classic. (The novel was also made into a film by Sofia Coppola.) Middlesex published in 2002, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the WELT-Literatur Preis, and the Santiago de Compostela Literary Prize from Spain.  In 2011, Eugenides published The Marriage Plot, which became a finalist for the National Book Critics’ Circle Award and was named as the best novel of that year by independent booksellers in the United States. Eugenides is also the Lewis and Loretta Glucksman Professor in American Letters at New York University. 

Co-hosted by NHM and the Consulate General of Greece in Chicago, the event will be a conversation between Eugenides and the Chicago Tribune features writer Christopher Borrelli. Eugenides will speak on how his Greek American identity has shaped his storytelling, from his acclaimed novels to his reflections on culture and creativity. Eugenides’ Pulitzer Prize-winning Middlesex is perhaps the most well-known contemporary Greek American novel, telling the story of three generations of the Greek American Stephanides family, who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus to Detroit, witnessing both the city’s glory days and racial conflicts.

The National Hellenic Museum (333 S. Halsted Street, Chicago) will host the event on Thursday, December 5, 2024, from 7-8:30 p.m. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m. Limited free tickets are available on a first come, first served basis on Eventbrite (www.eventbrite.com). For more information on this and other events at the museum, visit nationalhellenicmuseum.org or call 312-655-1234.