Literature Playlist

As part of the RSL/Booker Prize Foundation Masterclass series, Adam Foulds gave a class on 'bio-fiction' on 8 September 2012. Here, RSL Events Manager Lucy Clouting interviews him about his work and his top tips for aspiring biographical and historical fiction writers.

Adam Foulds on biographical and historical fiction

How do novelists and poets approach so contentious a subject? A panel consisting of writers who have published books about violent political events and their consequences - Adam Foulds, Chris Petit and Kamila Shamsie - considers the ethical and aesthetic challenges of creating art from such material.  Chaired by Pankaj Mishra.

Literature and Political Violence (Adam Foulds, Pankaj Mishra, Chris Petit, Kamila Shamsie)

THE TAGORE MEMORIAL MEETING

'Pakistan produces people of extraordinary bravery,' Nadeem Aslam has written, 'but no nation should ever require its citizens to be that brave.' His sentiment is shared by Kamila Shamsie, and the work of both novelists has focused on the human cost of conflict in their homeland. Nadeem Aslam was born in Pakistan, and experienced the devastation of General Zia's martial rule before his family fled to Huddersfield when he was 14. He has traced the plight of his compatriots from small-town Pakistan in 'Season of the Rainbirds' (1994), to the north of England in Maps for 'Lost Lovers' (2005), and back again in 'The Blind Man's Garden', published earlier this year. Kamila Shamsie grew up in Karachi, and many of her novels - 'In the City by the Sea', 'Salt and Saffron', 'Kartography' and 'Broken Verses' - have centred on struggles in her hometown. In a conversation chaired by essayist and novelist Pankaj Mishra, Aslam and Shamsie discuss writing fiction, set in Pakistan and beyond, during the 'war on terror' years.

We are grateful to the Robert Gavron Charitable Trust for sponsoring this event.

The Pakistani novel today

Ferdinand Mount examines some stirring successes, tantalising near misses and abject failures in giving literary voice to politics.  Chaired by Justin Cartwright.

Writers in Search of Politics (Ferdinand Mount)

As the numbers applying to read English Literature at university rise, financial support for the arts falls, and higher education faces fundamental changes to its funding, King’s College London and the RSL ask: What’s The Use Of Literature?  With Aminatta Forna, Priyamvada Gopal, Clare Lees, Andrew Motion and Michael Wood; chaired by Polly Toynbee.

(Technical difficulties mean that only the first 45 minutes of the event were recorded.  We apologise for the inconvenience.)

What's the Use of Literature? (Polly Toynbee)

David Hare contrasts a journalistic and an artistic view of life; chaired by Christopher Hampton.


Mere Fact, Mere Fiction (David Hare)

Born in Nottingham in 1957, Robert Harris grew up with a burning ambition to write, matched only by a deep fascination with politics. At 30, he became the political editor of The Observer. At 35, he published his first novel, Fatherland, which imagines a world in which the Nazis won the Second World War. It has sold over 3 million copies. Last autumn, he published Dictator, the final novel in his acclaimed trilogy about Cicero. In conversation with Peter Kemp, Chief Fiction Reviewer for The Sunday Times, he explores his belief that politics is “the essence of life” and how this belief has informed his fiction, and discusses which writers have influenced him and whether he was ever tempted to turn to Parliament rather than the pen.

The political novel

Simon Sebag Montefiore explores Stalin’s treatment of writers and their work, and considers the effects on himself as a writer of spending several years in the company of a man whom he describes as ‘part-intellectual, part-brigand’ in a talk chaired by Colin Thubron, who has been drawn repeatedly to the former Soviet Union in his travels.


Stalin and the writers (Simon Sebag Montefiore)

What does it mean to be an immigrant in the UK today? Journalist and BBC presenter Razia Iqbal chairs a discussion on immigration, race, identity and writing. Vahni Capildeo’s latest poetry collection, Measures of Expatriation, speaks of ‘the complex alienation of the expatriate’, and addresses wider issues around identity in contemporary Western society. Writer and academic Eva Hoffman’s publications include Lost in Translation: Life in a New Language and After Such Knowledge: Memory, History and the Legacy of the Holocaust. Mike Phillips is the author of Windrush: The Irresistible Rise of Multi-Racial Britain and London Crossings: A Biography of Black Britain, and writer Nikesh Shukla recently compiled a crowd-funded book of essays, The Good Immigrant, in which 21 Black, Asian and minority ethnic writers explore what it means for our identity if we are immigrants or children of immigrants.

The Good Immigrant

As non-fiction writers become more innovative in finding new structures and voices with which to tell their stories, how do they decide on their approach? What are the literary models on which they draw? Hisham Matar’s first novel, In the Country of Men, won several prizes, including the 2007 RSL Ondaatje Prize. Last year he
published The Return, which takes us on a journey to find his father. It won the Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Prize and was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Prize. Lara Feigel is the author of The Love-charm of Bombs and The Bitter Taste of Victory, in both of which she writes history with the structure of a novel.  Deborah Levy  is a British playwright, novelist, and poet. Her work has been staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company and she is the author of novels including Beautiful Mutants, Swallowing Geography, Billy and Girl, and the Booker-shortlisted Swimming Home. Their conversation is chaired by Lisa Appignanesi, author of Trials of Passion and Mad, Bad and Sad, who has expanded the creative possibilities of the Freudian case history.

This event is held in partnership with the Centre for Modern Literature and Culture at King's College London

The Art Of Non-Fiction

This lecture launches both our Literature Matters events and Marina Warner’s presidency of the RSL. Dame Marina looks at the interactions of stories and power in unsettled times, and asks whether ancient myths, retold in different media, can help build common ground. Marina Warner is a writer of fiction and cultural history. Her many publications include studies of the Virgin Mary and The Arabian Nights. She is Professor of English and Creative Writing at Birkbeck College, University of London, and a contributing editor to The London Review of Books. She was appointed CBE in 2008 and DBE in 2015. The event is introduced by Kamila Shamsie.

Literature Matters: imagination in action

Originality in science is synonymous with being first; originality in the arts is somewhat different.  At what point do these two creative endeavours overlap?

Originality (Ian McEwan)

Beryl Bainbridge and Hilary Mantel read from their works and discuss the difficulties and rewards of writing historical fiction, reflecting on what it is like, both for themselves and for everyone around them, to plunge into the past.


Making Fiction out of History (B. Bainbridge, H. Mantel)

Following the publication of La Belle Sauvage, Philip Pullman talks with Erica Wagner – author, critic and former literary editor of The Times – about his writing life, and about the books that helped shape him. Philip Pullman is one of the best-loved and most highly acclaimed children’s authors in the world, and his books are consumed by readers of all ages. He has won numerous awards, including the Whitbread Book of the Year. He has also become known for his views on Christianity, our education system and the role of the author in public life. He is, in his own words, ‘a passionate believer in the democracy of reading’.

We are grateful to Richard and Jenny Davenport-Hines for sponsoring this event in memory of their son Cosmo.

Philip Pullman - Literature Matters:The Democracy Of Reading

In the run up to the LSE Festival: Beveridge 2.0, rethinking the welfare state for the 21st Century, we bring together a panel to discuss the relationship between literature and poverty. They reflect on questions such as: do you need money to access literature? If not, why are there comparatively few working-class writers? And can literature actively play a part in reducing financial hardship? Kit de Waal, author of My Name is Leon and editor of the forthcoming Common People: An Anthology of Working Class Writers will be joined by playwright, novelist and short story writer Paul McVeigh and Aaron Reeves, Associate Professorial Research Fellow at the LSE, whose work looks at the causes and consequences of social, economic and cultural inequality. The conversation will be chaired by journalist Sarah Shaffi.

Can literature solve poverty?

How does a novelist set about exploring a culture that is not his own? Or writing about her own culture from a different country? And what are the advantages and challenges of exploring history through a domestic prism? In a conversation chaired by travel writer Sara Wheeler, Philip Hensher and Tahmima Anam discuss their relationship with Bangladesh, and ask what makes the Bangladeshi novel distinct

Bangladeshi Novel (Philip Hensher & Tahmima Anam)

Set on ‘a Wednesday in mid-June’, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway (like James Joyce’s Ulysses) takes place over the course of a single day. Virginia Woolf’s biographer Hermione Lee talks to novelist Alan Hollinghurst about Woolf’s legacy and influence, especially on his most recent novel, The Sparsholt Affair. During this celebration of one of the 20th Century’s most important novels, literary critic Elaine Showalter, author of the seminal A Literature of their Own, and Sarah Churchwell, Chair of Public Understanding in the Humanities at the School of Advanced Study, discuss the significance of Mrs Dalloway and its ongoing influence on literary culture.

Dalloway Day 2018

Romesh Gunesekera and Michael Morpurgo talk about the influences that lured them into storytelling and ask questions about characters, plots and readership.  Chaired by critic and writer Nicolette Jones.

Who Needs Stories? (Michael Morpurgo, Romesh Gunesekera)

Making art from real events is as old to writing as the pen – older. But what happens when the events you are writing about have taken place recently, or are happening as you type? What are the writer’s duties to fact? And how does a writer bring insights from current events to bear on the historical contexts of their work? 

Ali Smith has published three novels in a four-novel seasonal cycle, Autumn, Winter and Spring, exploring time, society and art in the context of Brexit Britain. Her books take the most of-the-moment political and social developments into the world of the novel. Jay Bernard’s collection, Surge, is a fearless exploration of the Black British archive, drawing its enquiry into the New Cross Fire in 1981 alongside the 2017 Grenfell disaster. James Graham’s play The Vote takes place in the last 90 minutes before polls close in the 2015 General Election, and was broadcast live on Channel 4 on election night. His 2019 drama for Channel 4, Brexit: The Uncivil War, explored the very recent history of the Brexit referendum.

Their conversation is chaired by writer and broadcaster Matthew Sweet.

This event was broadcast by BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking programme and is available as an Arts & Ideas podcast.

Literature Playlist

Hassan Mohican