CANTON — The 2017 Rabbi Seymour Siegel Memorial Lecture will be delivered by award-winning author Sayed Kashua at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 18, in the Sykes Common Room.

The event is free and open to the public.

Kashua is an Arab citizen of Israel who says he has never felt completely at “home.” Yet, with dry wit, precise metaphor, and seemingly innocent subjects, he sheds light on complex, sometimes despairingly painful, realities of life in modern Israel.

Kashua is the author of three novels: Dancing Arabs, Let it Be Morning and Second Person Singular, winner of the Berstein Prize. The Economist wrote, “A provocative and memorable novel, Mr. Kashua’s pacy narrative keeps the story moving to a clever and blackly humorous climax.”

Kashua also writes a satirical weekly column in Hebrew for the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz. In a humorous, tongue-in-cheek style, Kashua addresses the problems faced by Arabs in Israel, caught between two worlds. He is the writer and creator of the hit Israeli TV shows “Arab Labor” and “The Writer.” In 2004 he was awarded the Prime Minister's Prize in Literature, and he is the subject of the documentary “Forever Scared.”

Siegel was a noted conservative Jewish author and scholar. His family donated his papers to St. Lawrence University’s Owen D. Young Library and created an endowment for a lecture on campus in his memory. For more information, contact 315-229-5454.