Noted author Luis Alberto Urrea will be at Wichita State University, Nov. 6-7 as part of Wichita's citywide Big Read program.

Urrea will give a lecture and reading from his 2009 novel “Into the Beautiful North” at 3 p.m. Friday, Nov. 6, at the Ulrich Museum of Art. A book signing and reception will follow his presentation. The Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures is hosting the event

Urrea’s second program at Wichita State will be presented at 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 7, at the Hughes Metropolitan Complex. Urrea will give a lecture and reading, and will sign books afterward. This appearance is sponsored by Wichita State University and the Friends of Wichita Public Library.

Both programs are free and open to the public.

“Into the Beautiful North” is featured in the national 2015 Big Read program. It follows 19-year-old Nayeli as she travels across the rugged Mexican landscape, over the country’s northern border, to find gunfighters to help protect her hometown, Tres Camarones, from drug-dealing, roving criminals. A national best-seller, the book earned a citation of excellence from the American Library Association’s Rainbow Project.

Urrea is personally familiar with the themes of Mexican immigration and cultural identity. The son of a Mexican father and American mother, he grew up in Mexico and in the border region of the U.S. His literary work focuses on the complexities surrounding the American-Mexican border and those who are separated on either side.

A professor of English at the University of Illinois, Urrea has won numerous awards for his poetry, fiction and essays. “The Devil's Highway,” his 2004 nonfiction account of a group of Mexican immigrants lost in the Arizona desert, won the Lannan Literary Award and was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the Pacific Rim Kiriyama Prize.

Wichita has one of the nation's longest-running Big Read programs. The National Endowment for the Arts, in partnership with Arts Midwest, created The Big Read to revitalize the role of literature in American culture and bring the transformative power of literature into the lives of its citizens. The Big Read brings together partners across the country to encourage citizens to read for pleasure and enlightenment.

For more information about the book “Into the Beautiful North,” go to http://bit.ly/1NONxrd.

For more information about the Big Read program, go to http://www.neabigread.org/. For a listing of all Big Read events in Wichita and the surrounding area, go to http://bit.ly/1M9DnPk.