NY Public Library Honors Stoppard, Scorsese at Lions Benefit

The New York Public Library will honor John Hope Franklin, Jhumpa Lahiri, Martin Scorsese, and Tom Stoppard at its tenth anniversary Library Lions benefit on Monday, November 5, 2007 at the Humanities and Social Sciences Library, Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. The evening will also feature a dance party hosted by the Young Lions, a membership group of New Yorkers in their 20s and 30s who support the work of the Library. As part of the celebration of the benefit's anniversary the evening will be attended by many of the 40 Library Lions who have been honored since the event began in 1997.

Master of Ceremonies for the evening's program will be the Tony award-winning actress Jennifer Ehle. The event's co-chairs are Mr. and Mrs. Oscar de la Renta, H.R.H. Princess Firyal, Mr. Lionel I. Pincus, Mr. and Mrs. Richard S. Fuld, Jr., Mr. and Mrs. Felix Rohatyn, Mr. and Mrs. Stephen A. Schwarzman, and The Honorable Merryl H. Tisch and Mr. James S. Tisch. Young Lions co-chairs are Mr. Nicholas T. Brown, Ms. Lauren Bush, Ms. Amanda Hearst, Mr. Hudson Morgan, and Ms. Andrea Olshan. Décor for the evening will be designed by David Monn. Catering will be provided by Glorious Food.

Cocktails for Library Lions begin at 7PM 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. The evening continues with the Young Lions annual gala. A dance party and drinks will commence in Astor Hall at 9PM Music will be provided by DJ Andrew Andrew.

All event proceeds support the Library's General Book Fund. For ticket information, please call (212) 930-0922.

John Hope Franklin
A distinguished educator and historian, John Hope Franklin is the James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of History as well as the John Matthews Manly Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Chicago. A native of Oklahoma, he is a graduate of Fisk University and received master's and doctoral degrees in history from Harvard University. From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African-Americans, first published in 1947 and now in its eighth edition, is perhaps the best known of his numerous publications. Race and History: Selected Essays, 1938–1988, covering a teaching and writing career of 50 years, appeared in 1990. His most recent books are In Search of the Promised Land and his autobiography, Mirror to America (both 2005).

Professor Franklin has been active in numerous professional and education organizations and has served for many years on the editorial board of the Journal of Negro History. During the administrations of Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Ford, Carter, and Clinton, he was appointed to many national and international commissions and delegations. Honors include the first W.E.B. Du Bois Award, the Organization of American Historians' Award for Outstanding Achievement, the Alpha Phi Alpha Award of Merit, the NAACP's Spingarn Medal, the Kluge Award, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. A member of the Oklahoma Hall of Fame and the Oklahoma Historians Hall of Fame, he has received keys to the city from many communities and honorary degrees from more than 130 colleges and universities. He is the subject of the film First Person Singular: John Hope Franklin, shown on PBS in June 1997.

Jhumpa Lahiri
Novelist and short-story writer Jhumpa Lahiri was born in 1967 in London and was raised in Rhode Island. She received a B.A. in English Literature from Barnard College, and master's degrees in English, in Creative Writing, and in Comparative Studies in Literature and the Arts, and a Ph.D. in Renaissance Studies, from Boston University. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2002 and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2005.

Published in June 1999 to overwhelming acclaim, her first book, Interpreter of Maladies, a collection of stories, went on to win the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the PEN/Hemingway Award, and the American Academy of Arts & Letters Addison M. Metcalf Award. In addition, it was a Los Angeles Times Book Award finalist and was named Best Debut of the Year by The New Yorker. Her novel, The Namesake (2003), a New York Times bestseller and Notable Book, was named a Best Book of the Year by USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, Newsday, and the San Jose Mercury News, and "Book of the Year" by New York magazine. A film adaptation, directed by Mira Nair, was released in 2006. Her next book, a collection of short stories titled Unaccustomed Earth, will be released by Knopf in April 2008.

There are over one million copies in print of each of Jhumpa Lahiri's books, which have been translated into more than 30 languages. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children.

Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese was born in New York in 1942 and grew up in Little Italy, a neighborhood that has inspired many of his films. At New York University, where he received B.S. and M.S. degrees, he made several award-winning student films. His breakthrough came with Mean Streets, acclaimed in 1973 at the New York Film Festival. Raging Bull (1980) firmly established his artistic reputation; nominated for eight Academy Awards, it was subsequently named Best Film of the Decade by numerous critics.

His films include Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), Taxi Driver (1974), New York, New York (1975), The Last Waltz (1978), The Last Temptation of Christ (1985), The Color of Money (1986), GoodFellas (1990), The Age of Innocence (1993), Gangs of New York (2003), and The Aviator (2004). In 2006 Mr. Scorsese received his first Oscar (after six previous nominations) and his first Directors Guild Award for The Departed. His many other honors include the Palme d'Or; lifetime achievement awards from the American Film Institute (1997) and the Film Society of Lincoln Center (1998); the César d'Honneur (2000); and honorary doctorates from Princeton University, the Royal College of Art in London, and the University of Bologna.

In 1990 he helped create The Film Foundation, which encourages the restoration and preservation of films in archival collections. In 2006 he launched the International Film Foundation with filmmakers from five continents, focusing particularly on third-world countries that lack the means to safeguard their cultural heritage.

He is an avid reader and collector of literary first editions and of novels on which movies were based. His next project, a documentary/concert film on the Rolling Stones, Shine a Light, will be released in April 2008.

Tom Stoppard
Tom Stoppard was born in Czechoslovakia in 1937 and moved to England with his family in 1946. Recognized as a contemporary master of theater, he joined the front ranks of modern playwrights when Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead opened in London in 1967. This play was followed by other major works, including Jumpers, Travesties, The Real Thing, Hapgood, Arcadia, and The Invention of Love. The Lincoln Center Theater production of his trilogy, The Coast of Utopia (which premiered in London in 2002), received seven 2007 Tony Awards, including one for Best Play. His latest play, Rock'n'Roll, premiered in London last year and has just opened on Broadway.

His many adaptations for the stage include Undiscovered Country (Schnitzler), On the Razzle (Nestroy), Rough Crossing (Molnar), The Seagull (Chekhov), Henry IV (Pirandello), and Heroes (Sibleyras). He has also written for radio, television, and film. His screen credits, both as writer and co-writer, include Brazil, Empire of the Sun, Enigma, and Shakespeare in Love, winner of seven Academy Awards, including one for best original screenplay. The film version of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1990), which he directed from his own screenplay, won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

Sir Tom, who received his knighthood in 1997, lives in London. In 2000 he was awarded the Order of Merit by Her Majesty the Queen.

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