Appiah to be next president of writers group

From the Associated Press:

A Princeton University professor with a wide range of expertise will be the next president of the American center of PEN, the writers organization.

Kwame Anthony Appiah, a professor of philosophy at Princeton who has written three novels and written and edited numerous nonfiction books, is expected to be elected next week to a 1-year term.

PEN's executive vice president, Laurence J. Kirshbaum, said Thursday night that Appiah would succeed author Francine Prose, who had served two 1-year terms. Kirshbaum's comments were made while accepting an honorary prize on behalf of PEN from the National Book Critics Circle.

Appiah, 54, was born in London and lived for many years in Ghana. A world traveler immersed in everything from ethics to racial identity, he has written often about Africans and African-Americans and has set his fiction in England and Italy.