ATHENS, Ohio -- Due to illness Edward Said, keynote speaker for the 2001 Baker Peace Conference, has cancelled his appearance for 8 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 8 in Irvine Hall, room 194.

In his absence, Anton Shammas, novelist, poet and professor of Middle Eastern literature in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan will deliver the keynote address.

Shammas will talk about "Language and Colonialism: A Jewish Translator of Arabic Goes West with Columbus." His novel Arabesques, the first novel written in Hebrew by a Palestinian, was chosen by the editors of The New York Times Book Review as one of the best seven fiction works of 1988, the year of its American publication. Shammas is the author of three books of poetry, two in Hebrew and one in Arabic, and three plays in Arabic, English and Hebrew.