I am reading a new book called: The finer points of sausage dogs

The story begins with this man getting invited to speak at a conference in Arkansas, US. He thinks he has been invited to talk about his thesis on Portuguese irregular verbs. As he is mingling with other speakers at the cocktail party, one guest asks why he saw his obituary in the news paper. So then the man realises that there was a mix up is name was Professor Ingelfeld but the actual speaker who died is called Professor Von Ingelfeld. So he thinks he can just descretly slip away but before he knows it he is pulled onto stage.