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CORVALLIS, Ore. - Author Kazim Ali will read poetry at Oregon State University on Friday, Nov 21, beginning at 7:30 p.m. in the Valley Library Rotunda. A question and answer session and book signing will follow this free, public event.

Ali is a poet, essayist, fiction writer, and translator. He has written several volumes of poetry, including "Sky Ward," "The Fortieth Day," and "The Far Mosque," which won the Alice James Books New England/New York Award.

Of "The Far Mosque," Lucille Clifton said: "The author has managed to render into the English language the universal inner voice. These poems talk to the reader from the realm in which we are all human."

Ali's work in translation includes "Water's Footfall" by Sohrab Sepehri and, with Libby Murphy, "L'amour," by Marguerite Duras. His novel, "Quinn's Passage," was named one of the "Best Books of 2005," by Chronogram magazine. His books of essays include "Orange Alert: Essays on Poetry, Art and the Architecture of Silence," and "Fasting for Ramadan."

Ali, an associate professor of creative writing and comparative literature at Oberlin College, is also a contributing editor for AWP Writers Chronicle and associate editor for the literary magazine FIELD, as well as founding editor of the small press Nightboat Books.

The reading is part of the 2014-15 Visiting Writers Series sponsored by the MFA Program in Creative Writing in the School of Writing, Literature, and Film. The series brings nationally known writers to Oregon State University.

The program is supported by OSU Libraries and Press, the School of Writing, Literature, and Film, the College of Liberal Arts, OSU's Center for the Humanities, Kathy Brisker and Tim Steele and Grass Roots Books and Music.

The Valley Library is located at 201 S.W. Waldo Place on the OSU campus in Corvallis.