The Cornell English Department has become a staple in the American literary tradition. Although it isn’t readily apparent walking around the streets of Ithaca, American literature has benefited greatly from the work of notable Cornellians, some within the now 105 year-old Creative Writing program. The program offered to students its Centennial Plus Five reading series this semester in order to celebrate their impressive literary legacy and offer students access to the wide array of literary studies Cornell has to offer.

Would-be writers are a dime a dozen: every other English major, it seems, wants to be the next Faulkner. Those with talent may find themselves in an MFA program, and the lucky few will have a story published here and there in a small journal. But success like that enjoyed by Tea Bajraktarevic grad, who recently sold the rights to her first novel The Tiger’s Daughter to Dial Press (to be published next year), is rare indeed. Tea, who writes under the name Tea Obreht and whose first publication will be a story in The Atlantic Monthly’s summer fiction issue, sat down with The Sun to discuss death in the Balkans, the merits of MFAs and being stoked about success.

The Sun: When did you start writing?

“Just so you know, I got here because of rage,” said Sherman Alexie, an award-winning Native American writer and occasional comedian, in a half-serious, half-facetious manner at the Statler Auditorium in his Friday evening lecture, “The Partially True Story of the True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.”

Alexie’s first young adult novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian won the 2007 National Book Award in Young People’s Literature. The lecture, which was based on this novel, presented an overview of the author’s childhood and development as a writer.

Alexie frequently elicited laughter from the nearly 600-person audience as he often joked about the many tragedies of his younger years.

The 105-year-old Creative Writing program at Cornell played a key role in shaping 20th century American literature, several acclaimed literary scholars said at a panel discussion yesterday.

At a talk sponsored by the Creative Writing program as a part of the Spring Centennial Plus Five Reading Series, English department panelists Prof. Roger Gilbert, Prof. Mary P. Brady and Prof. Molly Hite, discussed Cornell writers Prof. emeritus A.R. Ammons, Thomas Pynchon ’59, Manuel Munoz ’98 and Loida Maritza Perez ’87.

If the verbal visionaries of Cornell’s nearly 105-year history of writing stood on each other’s shoulders; Nabokov as a base, cursing in Russian, Vonnegut next to him, muttering to himself about the absurdity of it, Pynchon above them, with a foot on each deltoid, shakily supporting Morrison, and so on — you’d have a ladder of literary giants to rival the clock tower. Even then, despite this towering tradition, the adrenaline-and-laughter inducing irreverence and innovation of Junot Díaz, MFA ’95, displayed to the delight of many in the Cornell community last week, would be enough, sure as Ithaca is cold, to make Uncle Ezra roll over in his grave and call for a pen. The Dominican-born author returned to campus Feb.

In a hallway hidden in the back of Goldwin Smith Hall, there is a worn metal plaque that hangs outside a certain office. It reads: “The writer Vladimir Nabokov 1899-1977 occupied this office during his tenure at Cornell University 1948-1959.”

Prof. Kenneth McClane ’73, English, who also received his MFA in Creative Writing from Cornell and is the current W.E.B. DuBois Professor of Literature, has occupied that office for six or seven years. The space, however, has not lost its magic for the veteran professor and author, as it continues to humble its current occupant.