The New York Public Library Honors Gao Xingjian, Orhan Pamuk, James D. Watson, Elie Wiesel, and Oprah Winfrey at Annual Library Lions Benefit, November 13, 2006

Toni Morrison is the Evening's Master of Ceremonies

The New York Public Library will honor Gao Xingjian, Orhan Pamuk, James D. Watson, Elie Wiesel, and Oprah Winfrey and at its annual black-tie Library Lions benefit on Monday, November 13, 2006 at the Humanities and Social Sciences Library, Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. The honorees were chosen for the global impact their contributions to literature, science, and the arts have had on society. United in their advocacy of free expression and their commitment to aiding humanity, either by means of science, literature, or philanthropy, the honorees represent the best of human culture. The ceremony will honor their extraordinary achievements and will recognize their enduring influence in their respective fields.

Master of Ceremonies for the evening's program will be Toni Morrison, Library Trustee and Nobel Prize-winning novelist. Cocktails begin at 7:00 p.m. in Astor Hall, followed by a dinner and program at 8:00 p.m. in the Deborah, Jonathan F.P., Samuel Priest, and Adam R. Rose Main Reading Room. All event proceeds support the Library's General Book Fund. For ticket information, please call (212) 930-0730.

The event's co-chairs are Mr. and Mrs. Oscar de la Renta; H.R.H. Princess Firyal and Mr. Lionel I. Pincus; Mr. and Mrs. Richard S. Fuld, Jr.; Mr. and Mrs. Stephen A. Schwarzman; Mr. and Mrs. Felix A. Rohatyn; The Honorable Merryl H. Tisch and Mr. James S. Tisch.

Gao Xingjian
Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2000 (the first Chinese writer to be so honored), Gao Xingjian is the leading Chinese dramatist of our time and a political dissident. He resides in Paris, where he continues to write in Chinese and French. Gao's novel Soul Mountain is based on his long pilgrimage along the Yangtze River. His plays, including The OtherShore, Nocturnal Wanderer, and Weekend Quartet, have been performed throughout the world. Since writing Fugitives (1989), a play critical of the Tiananmen Square massacre, he has again been prohibited from publishing in China. As an artist, Gao has had some 30 international exhibitions and provides the cover illustrations for his books.

Orhan Pamuk
An internationally acclaimed novelist and memoirist, Orhan Pamuk, Turkey's leading postmodern writer, was awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature. Often characterized as lyrical allegories, Pamuk's novels portray a modern Turkey caught between the push to become a secular, Westernized state and the pull of Islamic movements striving to maintain traditional Turkish culture.

Born in Istanbul in 1952, Mr. Pamuk was reared in an affluent, secular household and attended the University of Istanbul, graduating with a B.A. in journalism. He completed his first novel at age twenty-six, but The White Castle, written in 1985, was the first of his books to be published in English translation (in 1991). His subsequent novels were published in English as The Black Book (1994), The New Life (1997), My Name Is Red (2001), and Snow (2004). Istanbul: Memories and the City (2005) is a memoir.

Mr. Pamuk's works have been translated into more than forty languages and he has received numerous international awards, including the Prix Méditerranée étranger, the Prix Médicis étranger, and the Ricarda Huch Prize. He was granted honorary membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Mr. Pamuk was a visiting scholar at Columbia University from 1985 to 1988 and is now a fellow of Columbia's Committee on Global Thought.

James D. Watson
A pioneer in the field of molecular biology, James D. Watson was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1962 for his work, with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, determining the double-helical structure of DNA. During his tenure in the Department of Biology at Harvard University, Dr. Watson authored numerous books, including the bestselling The Double Helix, which chronicles the story behind the discovery of DNA. Dr. Watson is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; the National Academy of Sciences; and the Danish Academy of Arts and Sciences. He currently serves as Chancellor of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Cold Spring Harbor, New York.

Elie Wiesel
Born in Transylvania, Elie Wiesel was fifteen years old when he and his family were deported to Auschwitz, where his mother and younger sister perished. After his liberation in 1945, Mr. Wiesel studied in Paris and became a journalist and writer. Of his more than forty-five books, the best known is Night, an account of his experience during the Holocaust, which has been translated into more than thirty languages. Mr. Wiesel is an active spokesman for peace and human rights all over the world. He established The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity to create a new forum for the discussion of urgent ethical and moral issues confronting humankind. Elie Wiesel has been Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University since 1976. For his achievements as an author and human rights activist, he has been awarded the Grand-Croix in the French Legion of Honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal, and in 1986, the Nobel Peace Prize.

Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey's accomplishments as a television pioneer, producer, magazine founder, educator, and philanthropist led Time magazine in 2006 to name her one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Ms. Winfrey and her show have been honored with the most prestigious awards in broadcasting, receiving more than 40 Daytime Emmy Awards, including the first Bob Hope Humanitarian Award. Her show has remained the number one U.S. talk show for all 20 seasons and is broadcast internationally in 123 countries.  She has been recognized by the publishing community with the National Book Foundation's 50th Anniversary Gold Medal and the Association of American Publishers AAP Honors Award for the attention she has brought to reading through Oprah's Book Club, which has more than one million members.

Also, she garnered top industry honors for both acting and production in film, made her debut on Broadway last year as a producer of The Color Purple, launched the Oprah & Friends satellite radio channel, and founded O, The Oprah Magazine.

Her private charity, The Oprah Winfrey Foundation, has awarded hundreds of grants to organizations that support the education and empowerment of women, children, and families in the United States and around the world. In January 2007, the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls – South Africa, a state-of-the-art facility that will engender high standards of academic achievement and service leadership, will open its doors.  She also encourages people to make a difference in the lives of others through Oprah's Angel Network, a public charity. Her commitment to children led her to initiate the 1991 National Child Protection Act.

Toni Morrison (Master of Ceremonies)
Toni Morrison was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. An acclaimed novelist and critic, she is Robert F. Goheen Professor of Humanities, Emeritus, at Princeton University. Her novel Beloved was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Book Award, among other awards. A former book editor at Random House, Ms. Morrison is also the recipient of the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters (1996) and the National Humanities Medal (2000).

About The New York Public Library
The New York Public Library was created in 1895 with the consolidation of the private libraries of John Jacob Astor and James Lenox with the Samuel Jones Tilden Trust. The Library provides free and open access to its physical and electronic collections and information, as well as to its services. It comprises four research centers – the Humanities and Social Sciences Library; The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts; the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; and the Science, Industry and Business Library – and 86 Branch Libraries in Manhattan, Staten Island, and the Bronx. Research and circulating collections combined total more than 50 million items, including materials for the visually impaired. In addition, each year the Library presents thousands of exhibitions and public programs, which include classes in technology, literacy, and English as a second language. The Library serves some 15 million patrons who come through its doors annually and another 15 million users internationally, who access collections and services through the NYPL website, http://www.nypl.org.

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Contact:              Tim Farrell  212.704.8600                |               tfarrell@nypl.org

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