LITERATURE

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Literature

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Crime writer Ruth Rendell gave a Masterclass to fourteen participants for the RSL/Booker Prize Foundation series, on 22 June 2013. Here, she speaks to RSL Events Manager Lucy Clouting about her work and gives her top tips for writers.

Ruth Rendell interviewed by RSL Events Manager Lucy Clouting

"Nothing will come of Nothing" (Eyre)

This podcast focuses on the use of the term avant-garde in discourse around contemporary art, and particularly on how its application differs with locale. Panelist Nancy Adajania argues that our mythologizing of the idea removes us from its lingering potential.

The Avant-garde as Term and Idea

Of the thousands of books published in Britain each year, only a handful are translated from foreign languages. Given the dominance of English as the international language of business and politics, perhaps our literary chauvinism is inevitable. Does this narrowing of our reading world matter? Are we in danger of missing out on today's Tolstoy or tomorrow's Murakami? Novelist Adam Thirlwell has recently masterminded 'Multiples', a globe-trotting collection of 12 stories, translated in and out of English and 17 other languages by 61 authors. He chairs a conversation between three champions of translated literature - the writer and francophile Julian Barnes, the novelist Ali Smith, and Irène Némirovsky's translator, Sandra Smith - as they discuss the challenges of Anglocentricity, the relationship between authors and their translators, and the role of translators in shaping our cultural imagination and inheritance.

We are grateful to Portobello Books for sponsoring this event, and to the TLS for supporting it.

Julian Barnes, Ali Smith, Sandra Smith & Adam Thirlwell on translated literature

Cornel West, one of America’s most celebrated and provocative public intellectuals, in conversation with Ben Okri (novelist) and respondent Malachi McIntosh (University of Cambridge) on Literature and the Nation.

Professor Cornel West in conversation with Ben Okri on Literature and the Nation

Novelist and short story writer Margaret Drabble discusses the ethics of portraiture, the public versus the private image, the defining of character in paint and prose, and the many faces of Doris Lessing.

This event was part of 'Portraits of Writers', a series of talks in collaboration with the National Portrait Gallery, to coincide with the exhibition 'On Paper: Portraits of Writers'.

Portraits Of Writers Royal Society Of Literature - Margret Drabble on Doris Lessing

For nearly 50 years, the philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch wrote prolifically, establishing herself as one of the great British fiction writers of the twentieth century. Novelists A.S. Byatt, Bidisha and Philip Hensher, all of them powerfully influenced by Iris Murdoch, reconsider her standing as a writer. Chaired by Anne Chisholm.

Iris Murdoch Revisited (A.S. Byatt, Bidisha, Philip Hensher)

THE HAWTHORNDEN LECTURE

In 1948, the novelist and poet Jack Kerouac coined the name 'Beat Generation' for an underground, anti-conformist youth movement in New York. In the decade that followed, works such as Kerouac's On the Road, Allen Ginsberg's Howl and William S. Burroughs's Naked Lunch (the last two sparkling obscenity trials that ultimately revolutionised American publishing) formed a distinct 'Beat' literature. Iain Sinclair has been described by the Daily Telegraph as 'one of our most dazzling stylists', and American Smoke, published this month, completes the trilogy he began with Hackney: That Rose-Red Empire and continued with Ghost Milk. In a talk introduced by novelist and screenwriter Deborah Moggach, he conducts a memory interrogation, touching on the past meetings, lost archives, chance discoveries, volcano obsessions and fated decisions of the Beats.

We are grateful to the Hawthornden Charitable Trust for sponsoring this event.

Ian Sinclair on the Beats

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

One hundred years after the outbreak of the Great War, Peter Parker introduces four writers, and the pieces of First World War literature that mean most to them. Poet and fiction writer Tobias Hill looks at Alain-Fournier’s Le Grand Meaulnes. The Irish poet Michael Longley, whose father was awarded the Military Cross for gallantry during the First World War, reads from the poetry of Robert Graves, Wilfred Owen, Isaac Rosenberg, Siegfried Sassoon and Edward Thomas, as well as his own war-inspired work. Timberlake Wertenbaker, whose most recent play, Our Ajax, looks at the trauma of modern warfare, explains how she was
marked by Pat Barker’s Regeneration trilogy. And Louisa Young, author of the bestselling First World War novel My Dear, I Wanted to Tell You, considers The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West.

Voices of the Great War

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION/RSL SERIES: MEETING 2

Best remembered for her Moomin books, the Finnish writer Tove Jansson (1914-2001) is also celebrated for her adult fiction. But where do books for children end, and books for adults begin? Can an author’s writing invite the states of adulthood and childhood to merge and address each other? Jansson was inspired to create the Moomins after an argument about the philosopher Immanuel Kant; The Summer Book, a luminous novel for adults, explores the relationship between a six-year-old girl and her aging grandmother. Ali Smith is a prizewinning novelist, and has written introductions to several of Jansson’s books. Thomas Teal, who spent time with Jansson on her summer island in the 1970s, has translated six of her books, including The Summer Book. In 2009 he won the Bernard Shaw Prize for his translation of her novel Fair Play. To celebrate Jansson’s centenary, in a discussion chaired by Kate Kellaway, Smith and Teal look at her life and work, and the effect her characters have on readers of all ages.

On Tove Jansson

<a href="http://dreaminginthevoid.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dreaming in the Void blog</a> | <a href="http://soundcloud.com/dreaminginthevoid" target="_blank">Other sounds</a>

"Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Heres Tom with the Weather."
Bill Hicks
Source: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7D0BeLz5blM" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7D0BeLz5blM</a>

One Consciousness by Bill Hicks

THE T.S. ELIOT MEMORIAL MEETING

W.H. Auden once called poetry “a way of happening”, and in his own work the way was a marvellous one, striking a deep, popular chord. His “Funeral Blues” provides the only moment of gravity in Four Weddings and a Funeral; “September 1, 1939” was faxed around New York in the aftermath of 9/11. For Alexander McCall Smith, creator of the bestselling No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, Auden has for many years acted as a kind of invisible moral tutor, informing his responses to fundamental questions about life. In What Auden Can Do for You, published last year, he argues that this great poet can enhance the lives of all of us. Edward Mendelson, who corresponds with the fictional sleuth Isabel Dalhousie in McCall Smith’s novel The Right Attitude to Rain, is Professor of English and Comparative Literature and Lionel Trilling Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University. He is literary executor of Auden’s estate, the editor of several collections of his work, and the author of many books about him. In a conversation interspersed with readings, they discuss what Auden has meant to them personally, and the ways in which he continues to speak to us more than forty years after his death.

We are grateful to Old Possum's Practical Trust for sponsoring this event.

Auden and us

<a href="http://dreaminginthevoid.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dreaming in the Void blog</a> | <a href="http://soundcloud.com/dreaminginthevoid" target="_blank">Other sounds</a>

"Conspiracy theory is a kind of epistemological cartoon about reality. I mean isn't it so simple to believe that things are run by the Greys, or isn't it comforting to believe that the Jews are behind everything, or the communist party, or the Catholic Church or the masons. I believe that the truth of the matter is far more terrifying that the real Truth that dare not speak itself is that no one is in control. This stuff is ruled by the equations of dynamics and chaos. Now there may be entities seeking control, the World Bank, the Communist Party, the rich, somebody others, but to seek control is to take enormous aggravations upon yourself, because this process that is under-way will take the control freaks by the short and curly and throw them against the wall."
Terence McKenna
Source: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubDnEWHkjBc" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubDnEWHkjBc</a>

Terence McKenna on conspiracy theory

Please note: this recording contains some strong language.

Sir Richard Eyre, who ran the National Theatre from 1987 to 1997, is this country’s most distinguished director of film, theatre, television and opera. His numerous triumphs include the noted 1982 revival of Guys and Dolls, his recent version of Ghosts, the musical of Mary Poppins, and the film of Zoe Heller’s novel Notes on a Scandal. They also include a number of never-to-be-forgotten productions of Shakespeare: Hamlet, with Jonathan Pryce in 1980 and with Daniel Day-Lewis in 1989; Richard III with Ian McKellen; King Lear with Ian Holm; and the recent television version of Henry IV Parts 1 and II. In celebration of Shakespeare’s 450th birthday, Sir Richard reflects on the challenges and rewards of bringing his plays to stage and screen.

We are grateful to the National Portrait Gallery, our partner for this event. 

Living with Shakespeare (Richard Eyre)

If Virginia Woolf came back to life today, what would she make of it? How would she feel about what’s happening to books, and to the reputation of her own books, and of the Bloomsbury group?  The acclaimed novelist Maggie Gee, whose thirteen previous books include The White Family, My Cleaner and My Animal Life, this month publishes her new novel, Virginia Woolf in Manhattan, which imagines what ensues when an author working in the New York Public Library becomes so passionate about Woolf that she suddenly materialises. In a conversation chaired by Anne Chisholm, biographer of Frances Partridge, the long-lived Bloomsbury diarist who remembered Woolf from her youth, Maggie Gee discusses her novel with Alexandra Harris, author of Romantic Moderns, which explores connections between some of the 20th Century’s greatest writers and artists, including Virginia Woolf, Eric Ravilious and John Piper, and of a short biography of Woolf. They reflect on her imaginings of both past and future, and ask what she means to readers and writers today. Is she, for women writers in particular, a hard act to follow?

We are grateful to the Royal Literary Fund for sponsoring this event, and to the Bloomsbury Hotel for supporting it.

Virginia Woolf in the 21st Century

Seamus Heaney in conversation with Bernard O'Donoghue about his life and the influences that inform his work , with Nick Laird, Andrew O'Hagan, Jon Stallworthy and Jo Shapcott reading selections of Heaney's work.


A Life in Poetry (Seamus Heaney)

Mark Doty, who was born in Maryville, Tennessee, and now lives in New York, was the first American poet to win the T.S. Eliot Award, and is a former winner of the National Book Award for Poetry. He first came to public attention with work exploring gay identity and the AIDS epidemic. Deep Lane, published this spring, is a book of descents – into the earth beneath the garden, and into the dark substrata of life. It ranges from agony to rapture, from great depths to hard-won heights. Ruth Padel, a former winner of the National Poetry Competition, was shortlisted for the 2014 T.S. Eliot Award for Learning to Make an Oud in Nazareth, a book on conflict, harmony and creativity, weaving contemporary Middle Eastern politics and the history and culture of the Abrahamic religions, with music and craftsmanship. At its heart is a sequence on the Seven Last Words of Christ from the cross. Introduced by Fiona Sampson, Director, Roehampton Poetry Centre, our co-hosts for this event, Doty and Padel read from their work.

Mark Doty photo by Renato Pensold.

Tale of two cities

Kevin Folta addresses the elephant in the room: the recent flack about Monsanto funding a science communication outreach program, FOIA, and the future of the Talking Biotech science communication program.

Talking Biotech: Kevin Folta on biotechnology communication program, FOIA, and more

Charles Nicholl reflects on the challenges and pleasures of discovering the human figure behind Leonardo da Vinci's sometimes obscuring label of 'Universal Genius' - by delving into little known corners of Leonardo's notebooks and manuscripts, Nicholl provides a fascinating insight into his private life. Chaired by Philip Hensher.

In Search of Leonardo (Charles Nicholl)

Linda Anderson, an author and academic who has written extensively on twentieth-century women’s poetry and Elizabeth Bishop, marks the centenary of Bishop’s birth by exploring her genius.  Chaired by Fiona Sampson.


Elizabeth Bishop: dwelling without roots (Linda Anderson)

When a writer produces a novel as impressive as Jane Eyre, their fame is assured – like it or not. Even publishing under a pseudonym didn’t save Charlotte Brontë from the difficulties of celebrity and from being identified with her heroine. Claire Harman’s biography of Charlotte was published last autumn to rave reviews – it is, as one critic put it, “elegant, sensitive, beautifully paced and moving”. The playwright Moira Buffini wrote the screenplay for the 2011 film of Jane Eyre, starring Mia Wasikowksa and Michael Fassbender. Rachel Joyce, author of the bestselling novel The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, has been fascinated by the Brontës since childhood. Harman, Buffini and Joyce ask who was the real Charlotte Brontë? How did she negotiate the exposure that came with publication– especially after the deaths of Emily and Anne? And can a writer ever be free of her creations?

We are grateful to the National Portrait Gallery, our partner for this event.

Celebrarting Charlotte Brontë

http://www.iq2if.com In this talk, urban shaman Iain Sinclair argues that we live in the age of the Grand Project, when political and economic elites decide that big visions are required to improve districts and cities. The London 2012 Olympics encapsulate this trend towards "retro-futurism" and they will be extremely damaging to East London.

The inaugural If Conference, from debate forum Intelligence Squared, took place on November 25-26th November in London. More than 30 celebrated scientists, award winning architects, farsighted futurologists and other brilliant minds shed light on the excitements and the dangers of tomorrow's world. Visit http://www.iq2if.com for video and picture highlights and to sign up for information about If Conference 2012.

Iain Sinclair: Ghost Milk - Calling time on the Grand Project

In this talk, she asks how Eliot tested  a variety of lives in his masterpiece, Four Quartets. How do writers, or risk-takers like his ancestor Andrew Eliot, or Londoners during the Blitz, or members of a religious community, hold up against Eliot's pattern of the perfect life: 'a lifetime burning in every moment'?

TS Eliot and the search for perfection (Lyndall Gordon)

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)

Elaine Showalter discusses the enormous impact of the Brontës - through Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Vilette and Mrs Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë - on American women's writing in the 19th century: writers black and white, novelists and poets, from Emily Dickinson to Sarah Orne Jewett, who used the lives and novels of the Brontës as inspirations for American stories.  Chaired by Ion Trewin.

American women writers & the Brontes (Elaine Showalter)

The Joyce trail has led Tom Staley around the world: to Dublin a dozen times; to Paris; and to Trieste, where 'Dubliners' was completed, 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man' written,and 'Ulysses' begun. He reflects on these journeys, his studies, and his enduring passion for the genius of Joyce. Chaired by Roy Foster.

A Life with Joyce (Tom Staley)

We look at medical treatments and devices that may change how diseases are diagnosed and treated.

Biotechnology, Part 2

Biotechnology, Part 1

Orlando Figes, one of the leading historians of twentieth-century Russia, will speak about 'Just Send Me Word', published in 2012. Based on the largest known collection of private correspondence from the Gulag, the book tells the extraordinary story of a prisoner of Pechora Labour Camp and his girlfriend in Moscow through their 1,246 letters.

In this recording from December 2012, Figes is introduced by Susan Richards, author of 'Lost and Found in Russia' and founder editor of openDemocracy Russia.

We are grateful to Robert Skidelsky for sponsoring this lecture.

Orlando Figes - Love in a very cold climate

In the first of her two tanner lectures, Rebecca Goldstein discusses the overlap and conflict between philosophy and the literary arts, and whether novels can be philosophically justified.  Ms. Goldstein’s career bridges the divides between the humanities, the arts, and the sciences. Equally comfortable discussing physics or fiction, she is also an important voice in the current active debates between religion and science.  A Koret International Book Award winner, a multiple time National Jewish Book Award winner, a MacArthur Fellow, and a Whiting Foundation Writer's Award winner, in 2008 she was designated Humanist Laureate by the International Academy of Humanism and was named Humanist of the Year 2011 by the American Humanist Association. Her books include Finding Spinoza, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God, Incompleteness, Mazel, and The Mind Body Problem. Nov 17, 2011

The Ancient Quarrel: Philosophy and Literature, Part One

In the second of her two Tanner lectures, Rebecca Goldstein discusses the overlap and conflict between philosophy and the literary arts, and whether novels can be philosophically justified.  Ms. Goldstein’s career bridges the divides between the humanities, the arts, and the sciences. Equally comfortable discussing physics or fiction, she is also an important voice in the current active debates between religion and science.  A Koret International Book Award winner, a multiple time National Jewish Book Award winner, a MacArthur Fellow, and a Whiting Foundation Writer's Award winner, in 2008 she was designated Humanist Laureate by the International Academy of Humanism and was named Humanist of the Year 2011 by the American Humanist Association. Her books include Finding Spinoza, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God, Incompleteness, Mazel, and The Mind Body Problem. Nov 17, 2011

The Ancient Quarrel: Philosophy and Literature, Part Two

Founded in 1820, the RSL acts as a voice for the value of literature, honouring and supporting emerging and established writers whilst creating a bridge between authors and audiences of all backgrounds and experiences to engage as many people as possible with the wealth of literature in the UK.

A Life with Joyce (Tom Staley)

Royal Society Literature