Literature Playlist

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)

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)

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

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

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

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

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.

The Good Immigrant

Royal Society Literature