Abraham Verghese, M.D., M.A.C.P., M.F.A., D.Sc. (Hon.), director of the Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics at the Health Science Center, will be honored with Gemini Ink’s Award of Literary Excellence for his excellence as a San Antonio writer who has gained national attention and nurtured other writers in the city. Gemini Ink, the well-known center for literary arts and ideas, is sponsoring the event,
Inkstravaganza, at 6:30 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 7, at the St. Anthony Hotel.
During the event, Dr. Verghese will read from his upcoming novel,
Cutting for Stone, and a limited production of “chap books” will be available for purchase. The chap book, traditionally a small book containing poems, ballads or stories, will feature a chapter from Dr. Verghese’s book and will be sold as a collector’s piece to raise funds for Gemini Ink. The
Inkstravaganza is Gemini Ink’s major annual fundraiser event and proceeds go to bring quality, diverse literary arts programs to San Antonio.
Speaking of his book, Dr. Verghese said: “I hope that in it, I can capture how much I love the practice of medicine, the caring for patients, the interaction with students, the constant way that medicine humbles you and the way that your patients educate you.”
The organization will also present a special Lifetime Achievement Award to Jacques Barzun, the world-renowned cultural historian whose international bestseller,
From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present was published in 2000 when he was 93. He has published some 30 books over an 80-year career. Dr. Barzun, professor emeritus of Columbia University, holds the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Gold Medal for Criticism from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He was featured on the cover of
TIME Magazine in 1956 in a major story on intellectuals in America and lauded as a man of ideas, an eminent historian and perceptive commentator on the American scene.
Dr. Verghese, who has served on the board of Gemini Ink for a number of years, said he is awed to be honored with Jacques Barzun, who with his wife, Marguerite, moved to San Antonio from New York City in the late 1990s.
“Dr. Barzun’s work will continue to influence cultural debate for a long time,” Dr. Verghese said. “That he enjoys the same intellectual reputation today that he did 50 years ago is remarkable. We are fortunate that his wife’s ties to her home town brought them both here to San Antonio. We have all benefited from his presence here.”
Dr. Verghese is the author of
My Own Country: A Doctor’s Story, a bestseller nominated for the National Book Critic’s Circle Award that was made into a television movie. It is now reaching at medical schools across the county. His second book,
The Tennis Partner: A Doctor’s Story of Friendship and Loss, was also a national bestseller. His writing appears regularly in the
New Yorker, the
New York Times, the
Wall Street Journal and the
New York Times Magazine.
Tickets for the gala are still available and priced at $100 per person. Reservations can be made by calling Gemini Ink at (210) 734-9673.
For more information, visit
www.geminiink.org/.
