Andrew Solomon will speak at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 10 in the Dean Ballroom of the Sheraton Iowa City Hotel. His talk is free and open to the public.

Solomon’s visit is sponsored by the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine and made possible by the Lecture Committee.

Solomon’s books and essays explore politics, culture, and psychology with what critics call, “extraordinary humanity.” His latest work, Far From the Tree: Parents, Children & the Search for Identity, received the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction.

The book explores the lives of families that accommodate children with physical, mental, and social disabilities and how these challenges can broaden one’s capacity for love. Solomon spent 10 years researching the work, interviewing more than 300 families and generating more than 40,000 pages of notes.

The New York Times chose Far From the Tree as one of the Ten Best Books of 2012, praising it as “a book everyone should read.” President Bill Clinton called the book “remarkable” and it continues to garner acclaim and receive numerous awards, including the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and Yale University’s Research Advocacy Award.

In 2001, Solomon received the National Book Award for The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression. The book was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and was a world-wide bestseller published in more than twenty languages.

Solomon is a regular contributor to National Public Radio (NPR), The New York Times and many other publications. He has lectured on an extensive range of topics at Harvard, Yale, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and is an outspoken activist for many causes including LGBT rights, mental health, education, and the arts. He lives with his husband and young son in New York and London.

Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all UI-sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires a reasonable accommodation in order to attend this reading, contact the Center for Student Involvement and Leadership in advance at 319-335-3059.