Field Of Study

Michael Ondaatje

inspiration

samples,loops, interviews,...

spoken word / lectures

royal society literature

Dressed in black and based in the US, Neil Gaiman has, in the past decade, become an author hero among readers of all ages, including the 1.8 million who follow him on Twitter. In prize-winning, best-selling novels including Coraline, Neverwhere, American Gods and The Graveyard Book, he combines the everyday and the other-worldly, drawing on sources from English folklore, science fiction, fantasy, horror and fairytales to rock music and the Midrash. An element of enchantment runs through all his work. To mark the publication of The Ocean at the End of the Lane, an unsettling and very personal fable about memory, magic and survival, he is making one public appearance in London. Interviewed by the Guardian's literary editor, Claire Armitstead, he reflects on the boundaries between children's and adult literature; the appeal of working in multiple forms - such as comics, picture books and screenplays; the writers - from Kipling to Edgar Allan Poe - who have most influenced him; and the lure of darkness.

The Guardian  is media partner for this event.

Neil Gaiman in conversation with Claire Armitstead: June 2013

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

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

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

‘I am drawn to people who seem to have been born defeated,’ Penelope Fitzgerald once wrote. She considered herself one of these, and despite great early promise lived much of her life in drudgery and near destitution. Then, in her late 50s, she began to write. Over the next two decades, she not only published three biographies, but nine brief and brilliant novels, four of which were shortlisted for the Booker, Offshore winning it. At 80, Fitzgerald found fame both sides of the Atlantic. Chaired by Hermione Lee, whose widely acclaimed biography of Fitzgerald was published last autumn, and who will speak about her life, three writers celebrate one of the great writers of the 20th Century, and one of the most fascinating. Biographer and critic Susannah Clapp, who regularly edited Fitzgerald’s work at the LRB, considers her biography of the poet Charlotte Mew. Penelope Lively, who was a friend, talks about The Gate of Angels. Alan Hollinghurst looks at Offshore, a novel based on Fitzgerald’s experiences of living on a leaky houseboat on the Thames.

We are grateful to the Royal Literary Fund
for sponsoring this event.

On Penelope Fitzgerald

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

Seth Godin in conversation with Debbie Millman about courage, anxiety, change, creative integrity,  how to dance with the fear, and more. Background and transcribed highlights: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/05/20/seth-godin-debbie-millman-interview/

TRANSCRIPT / DETAILS

Seth Godin in conversation with Debbie Millman

<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

<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

Celebrated author, Michael Ondaatje talks with ArtBeat about his novel Coming Through Slaughter. The 1976 novel is the August read for the CKUA Book Club. It transports the reader to New Orleans in the early 1900s to witness jazz pioneer, Buddy Bolden destroy himself and music boundaries.
Produced by Sarah Hoyles

SHOW WEBSITE: www.ckua.com/artbeat

Book Club | Michael Ondaatje interview

Background and context: http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/09/10/mary-oliver-on-punctuation/

Recorded by the Lannan Foundation, 2001

TRANSCRIPT

Seven White Butterflies: Mary Oliver on punctuation

Interview by Luisa Cotardo conducted in 1995. Transcript and background: http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/09/11/jeff-buckley-interview/

Recording courtesy of Luisa Cotardo (http://luisacotardo.tumblr.com) for Brain Pickings (http://www.brainpickings.org)

TRANSCRIPT / CONTEXT

Jeff Buckley on music and life

Hip Hop Guitar Loops Demo

World Music Bundle Demo

Gambian Percussion Demo

Richard Strauss - Sonata in E-flat major
I. Allegro, ma non troppo II. Improvisation: Andante cantabile III. Finale: Andante - Allegro

Marie Schreer - violin
Maria Levandovskaya - piano

Full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tA5_EF2DwTI

Recorded live at Milton Court Concert Hall, London on 18 June 2015.

R. Strauss: Violin Sonata in E-flat major / Marie Schreer & Maria Levandovskaya [LIVE]

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

Preoccupied with memory and place, both physical and emotional, Michael Ondaatje was recently described by the Guardian as 'one of the most innovative and liberating writers of our time'. In a conversation interwoven with readings, he talks to Fiammetta Rocco, editor of Books and Arts for The Economist about his life and work. 


Time Around Scars (Michael Ondaatje)

Background: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/08/07/the-histories-of-the-universe-patti-smith/

Patti Smith "The Histories of the Universe" (1975)

Michael Ondaatje reads from his novel Anil's Ghost at Readings From Around the Globe, part of the 2009 PEN World Voices Festival.

Michael Ondaatje Reads from Anil's Ghost

Michael Ondaatje reads from his novel Divisadero at Adventures in the Skin Trade: A Conversation with Colum McCann & Michael Ondaatje, part of the 2008 PEN World Voices Festival.


Michael Ondaatje Reads from Divisadero

Rose Tremain in conversation with Richard Holmes, discussing historical fiction.

Much have I travelled (Rose Tremain)

Stirling University hosted an evening with perhaps one of the best known Nobel winning poets, Seamus Heaney. Thanks to Stirling for recording the event.

Seamus Heaney at Stirling University

David Harsent, who recently won the Griffin International Poetry Prize for his tenth collection, 'Night', discusses and reads from the work of Seamus Heaney, accompanied with recordings of the Nobel Laureate.

Portraits of Writers Series - David Harsent on Seamus Heaney

Paula Johnson, the RSL's Awards Administrator, chairs the V S Pritchett Memorial Prize 2012, an evening in celebration of the short story. Acclaimed author Jackie Kay discusses the genre of the short story, and the themes within her own work, before reading from her latest short story collection, 'Reality, Reality'. Afterward, Chair of the RSL Anne Chisholm presents Martina Kay with her award for Best Short Story, before the author reads her winning piece.

The V.S. Pritchett Memorial Prize Reading 2012 - Jackie Kay & winner Martina Devlin

Excerpt from Handwriting, a Random House Canada audiobook, written and read by the author Michael Ondaatje, produced by Don Edwards.

Michael Ondaatje -- Handwriting

THE T.S. ELIOT MEMORIAL MEETING

For Alice Oswald, a poet committed to the live performance of her work, the role of poetry is to go "lower than rhetoric, lower than conversation, lower than logic, right down to the very faint honest voice at the bottom of the skull". Noted for her visionary precision and love of nature, she won the T.S. Eliot Prize for 'Dart' (2002), her poem about the Devon river and the people who live and work on it. But in her most recent work, 'Memorial', she leaves England for the killing fields of Troy, in a reworking of the Iliad described by Andrew Motion as "an elegy of quite extraordinary power". The Classics, and especially Ovid’s Metamorphoses, have also been a lodestone for Robin Robertson. The first person to win the Forward Poetry Prize in all three categories - 'A Painted Field' (1997) was Best First Collection, 'Swithering' (2006) Best Collection, and ‘At Roane Head’ (2010) Best Single Poem - Robertson has been praised by John Banville for his "genius for exact and gorgeous imagery, his dazzling metaphorical gift". In the newly published 'Hill of Doors', he combines loose retellings of stories of the shape-shifter Dionysus with poems about his childhood on the north-east coast of Scotland. It is his most powerful book to date.

We are grateful to Old Possum's Practical Trust for sponsoring this reading.

Alice Oswald & Robin Robertson - March 2013

Excerpt from Orwell's fantastic 1946 essay outlining his 11 "golden" rules of tea perfection: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/05/14/george-orwell-a-nice-cup-of-tea/

George Orwell on how to make the perfect cup of tea

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.

Time Around Scars (Michael Ondaatje)

Royal Society Literature