‘Hard as nails… a cross between a charwoman and a gipsy, but as tenacious as a terrier, with flashing eyes… immense vitality… suspicion of intellectuals, and great intelligence…’
This event is available to view as a recording until 13 June. Tickets can be purchased below.
So said Virginia Woolf of Rebecca West, prolific author, journalist, literary critic, travel writer and one of the foremost public intellectuals of the twentieth century. Throughout her incredibly full life she wrote countless works of fiction and non-fiction, travelled the world, fought for women’s suffrage and opposed fascism, covered the Nuremberg trials as a journalist, sheltered Yugoslav refugees on her country estate, had affairs with famous men, had a son with H G Wells, and always spoke her mind.
West was a founding member of English PEN and Vice President of The London Library. As both organisations celebrate our anniversaries, 100 years and 180 years respectively, we, in turn, celebrate one of the most energetic, fearless and fierce figures in our organisations’ histories, with an esteemed panel of West aficionados, Amanda Craig, Geoff Dyer, Lara Feigel and Vesna Goldsworthy, in conversation with Katherine Cooper.
In partnership with English PEN
Amanda Craig is the author of nine novels examining contemporary British life, including most recently The Lie of the Land and The Golden Rule (long-listed for the 2021 Women's Prize). She wrote the introduction to Virago's reissue of Rebecca West's The Fountain Overflows and spoke about her work on the Backlisted podcast.
Geoff Dyer is the author of ten non-fiction books and four novels. He has won multiple prizes including the Somerset Maugham Prize, the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction, a National Book Critics Circle Award and the Windham Campbell Prize for non-fiction. He is currently Writer in Residence at the University of Southern California.
Lara Feigel is a writer and cultural historian teaching in the English department at King’s College London. Her books include The Bitter Taste of Victory, The Love-charm of Bombs and Free Woman, which is part memoir and part biography of Doris Lessing. Her new novel, The Group, was published in July 2020.
Vesna Goldsworthy’s internationally bestselling novel Gorsky and memoir Chernobyl Strawberries were serialised for the BBC. She has written about Rebecca West in her award-winning poetry collection The Angel of Salonika and in Inventing Ruritania, which is recognised as one of the key contributions to the study of Balkan and European identity.
Katherine Cooper is Senior Research Associate at the University of East Anglia, working on the ‘Writers Organisations and Free Expression project,’ which explores the history of PEN. A BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker, her first book, a critical study of the war novels of Margaret Storm Jameson, was published in April 2020.
English PEN are marking their centenary with Common Currency, a 12-month celebration of freedom of expression, creative campaigning and the best literature the world has to offer, with a unique programme of events, residencies and workshops inspired by three key themes: free speech and democracy, languages and ideas, and celebrating women.
N.B. This is an online event. You will be sent a link 24hrs before the event and the link will remain valid until the end of 13 June.
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Your link will be sent to you via Eventbrite. If you do not receive it, please check your junk file or email litfest@londonlibrary.co.uk. Please note the event starts with a slide show listing the festival events which lasts approx 1 minute.
Transcription for this event will be available soon.
Ticket holders will receive a 10% discount to buy all festival books from Hatchards until 13 June with their ticket.
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Tickets
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