kerplunkk // cunning linguism

Literature

Jonathan Swift: Work in Progress (Victoria Glendinning)

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

Background and poem text: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/07/02/patti-smith-jack-kerouac-last-hotel/

DETAILS / POEM TEXT

Patti Smith reads Jack Kerouac's "The Last Hotel"

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

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.

Jonathan Swift: Work in Progress (Victoria Glendinning)

Royal Society Literature