Seamus Deane, an acclaimed Irish scholar and writer, will make two presentations at UNLV Oct. 3.

The Distinguished Professor of Irish Literature at the University of Notre Dame will will read from his first novel, "Reading in the Dark," at 3 p.m. at Frank and Estella Beam Hall, Room 241. At 7:30 p.m. that evening, Deane will deliver a lecture on politics and literature in 20th century Ireland in the auditorium of the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Natural History.

A member of the Royal Irish Academy, he also has served as a distinguished faculty member at a number of other universities in Ireland and America, including University College in Dublin and the University of California, Berkeley. Deane, along with with Nobel Laureate Seamus Haney, playwright Brian Friel, and actor Stephen Rea, is a founding member of the Field Day company of Northern Irish writers.

Deane is the author of several important works of literary criticism, including "Celtic Revivals: Essays in Modern Irish Literature" and "A Short History of Irish LIterature." He also is the general editor of the seminal "Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing," the most complete collection of Irish writing ever assembled.

In the area of creative writing, Deane has earned the AE Award for Literature and the American Ireland Fund Literary Award. "Reading in the Dark" (Knopf, 1997), has been called a "lyrically charged, breathtakingly sad and haunting story of one boy's childhood in the 1940s and 1950s Derry, a place where both ancient and modern myths collide with the harsh realities of everyday." "Reading in the Dark" was runner-up for last year's Booker Prize, awarded annually to the best British novel.