ENGLISH/CULTURAL CENTER
Presented by Hofstra University’s Department of English in collaboration with the Hofstra Cultural Center.
Launched by Hofstra University in recognition of the importance of writing and literature in a liberal arts education, Great Writers, Great Readings events bring notable authors to campus to meet with creative writing students for a short workshop and question/answer session. Authors may also conduct a reading and book signing that is open to the public. Sometimes the authors use this forum as an opportunity to introduce new unpublished works.
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We are pleased to welcome the community, including family members, local schoolchildren, alumni and friends, to athletic and cultural events on campus. All events are free and open to the public. Please register in advance at events.hofstra.edu. For more information, please call the Hofstra Cultural Center at 516-463-5669.
The following events take place at the Leo A. Guthart Cultural Center Theater, Joan and Donald E. Axinn Library, First Floor, South Campus.
Fall 2026
23nd Annual Great Writers, Great Readings Series
Javier Zamora
Memoirist, poet, and author of Solito, and a winner of the 2023 American Book Award.
Wednesday, November 4, 2026, 6:30 p.m.
Memoirist, poet, and speaker Javier Zamora believes that immigrants must keep ownership of their own stories. In his award-winning memoir, Solito, he explores his own: a harrowing journey to the U.S. as an unaccompanied nine-year-old that gives a unique and unforgettable glimpse into the realities of child migration. In his talks, he shares the story of his trek to reunite with his family, and how therapy and writing were able to help him heal from the trauma that has haunted him ever since. More about Javier Zamora
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Celebrating Our Own
Faculty, alumni and students of Hofstra discuss their published work and the craft of writing
Álvaro Enrigue
Hofstra professor and award-winning author of Now I Surrender, You Dreamed of Empires
With Natasha Wimmer
Monday, October 26, 2026, 6:30 p.m.
Join us at 5:30 p.m. for a light reception where the author’s titles will be available for purchase and signing.
Orchestrated with a stunningly imagined cast of characters, both historical and purely fictional, Now I Surrender radically recasts the story of how the West was “won.” In the contested borderlands between Mexico and the United States, a woman flees into the desert after a devastating raid on her dead husband’s ranch. A lieutenant colonel in service to the fledgling Republic, sent in pursuit of cattle rustlers, discovers he’s on the trail of a more dramatic abduction. Decades later, with political ambitions on the line, the American and Mexican militaries try to maneuver Geronimo, the most legendary of Apache warriors, into surrender. In our own day, a family travels through the region in search of a truer version of the past.
Álvaro Enrigue is a Hofstra University associate professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and a Mexican writer. His novel, You Dreamed of Empires, was a New York Times Top 10 Book for 2024. He was a former fellow at the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers.
Natasha Wimmer is a translator of contemporary fiction and literary nonfiction from Spanish to English and a regular visiting lecturer at Princeton University and Columbia University.
RSVP to Attend
The dedicated Cultural Center staff is ready to help you engage with diverse artistic and intellectual opportunities that spark new perspectives.