
The Unfree: Persecuted authors and censorship
Lately, much attention has been given to political attacks on prestigious writers. The attempted murder of Salman Rushdie and the deplatforming of Adania Shibli at the Frankfurt Book Fair sparked inte...
11 Aug 202456min

My African Reading List: Igoni Barrett
Igoni Barrett is a Nigerian writer of novels and short stories, especially well known for his award-winning novel 2015 Blackass. In 2014, he was named on the Hay Festival's Africa39 list of African wr...
4 Aug 202432min

A Tangled Family History: Simon Sebag Montefiore and Shazia Majid
What do the Mings, The Rameses’, the Romanovs, the Assads and the Clintons have in common? They are all family dynasties who, for better or worse, have influenced the history of the world.Historian an...
28 Juli 202459min

Fighting mad to tell their story: Jean Rhys and Jamaica Kincaid writing in the aftermath of Jane Eyre
Lecture by Denise DeCaires NarainThis lecture introduces two of the most prolific Caribbean women writers, Jean Rhys and Jamaica Kincaid, comparing their distinctive styles and thematic focus. Both wr...
21 Juli 202445min

My African Reading List: Leila Aboulela
Leila Aboulela is a Sudanese writer, currently living in Scotland. She is the author of six award winning novels, including The Translator (1999), Bird Summons (2019) and River Spirit (2023), as well ...
14 Juli 202430min

Lucy's Many Lives: Elizabeth Strout and Kjersti Skomsvold
Elizabeth Strout is one of the most distinct voices in contemporary American literature, and beloved by readers and critics alike. Her international breakthrough came with the novel Olive Kitteridge, ...
7 Juli 202457min

Just Keep Going. Personal lecture by Elizabeth Strout
Elizabeth Strout is one of the most distinct voices in contemporary American literature, and beloved by readers and critics alike. She started writing at an early age, but it would take her many years...
7 Juli 202441min

Gender, Class and Loss: Glenn Bech, Andrew McMillan and Kristofer Folkhammar
Writer and therapist Glenn Bech sparked a larger debate about class issues in Denmark with his autobiographical novel The Fathership (forthcoming in Hazel Evans’ translation) and his manifesto Jeg ane...
9 Juni 20241h 13min



















