March 19, 2010

Contact:
Elizabeth Klipp, 404-413-1356
University Relations

ATLANTA - With a performance next week, Georgia State will explore the ways the art, literature and music of Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, has been shaped in recent history.

Free and open to the public, the performance will be held at 7 p.m. on March 25 in the Florence Kopleff Recital Hall. It will feature novelist Glenn Patterson and singer/songwriter Andy White, both Belfast natives.

The performance coincides with a special edition of GSU's Five Points: Literary Magazine, titled "Belfast Imagined." The edition highlights some of the most important writers in poetry, fiction and non-fiction out of Belfast, as well as photography and music on an accompanying audio CD.

"Our goal is a sonic postcard from Belfast," said Megan Sexton, editor of the "Belfast Imagined" issue, co-editor of Five Points and an instructor in the Georgia State English Department. "Belfast is one of the most exciting places artistically now in the world. The poets and writers publishing there and the composers and musicians working there are producing some of the most innovative and interesting work globally."

Out of the ravages of civil war, post-ceasefire Belfast has emerged as a new city. It is a place of exciting and largely undocumented change, in the wake of a new government, economic change and a renewed sense of itself.

The performance and literary magazine are sponsored by Georgia State's Collaborative and International Arts in the College of Arts and Sciences.

 "Belfast Imagined" will be available for purchase at the event and after in bookstores and online at www.fivepoints.gsu.edu.

The Florence Kopleff Recital Hall is located on the Gilmer Street entrance of the Arts and Humanities Building, 10 Peachtree Center Ave.