MARQUETTE, Mich.—Aleksandar Hemon, author of the One Book One Community selection, The Lazarus Project, will give a presentation at Northern Michigan University on Tuesday, Nov. 15. The talk is free and open to the public. It begins at 7 p.m. in the Great Lakes Rooms of the University Center. Hemon will be available to sign books afterward.

The Lazarus Project was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award. It is a work of historical fiction born from an event long shrouded in mystery: the 1908 shooting of 19-year-old Lazarus Averbuch, a Jewish immigrant from Eastern Europe, by the chief of Chicago Police. The novel seamlessly weaves together Averbuch’s story with that of Vladimir Brik, the 21stcentury fictional hero who is a Bosnian-American writer in Chicago.

Born in Sarajevo, Hemon was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2003 and a "genius grant" from the MacArthur Foundation in 2004. He is the author of three short story collections: The Question of Bruno; Nowhere Man, which also was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist; and Love and Obstacles. He lives in Chicago with his wife and daughter.

Hemon’s presentation is sponsored by the NMU provost's office, Sigma Tau Delta, The Marquette-Alger Reading Council and NMU's Visiting Writers Program.