UEA Literary Festival

Truly international line-up for UEA literary festival

A glittering array of writers is coming to the University of East Anglia (UEA) from across the world this autumn for its latest literary festival. 

Autobiography, biography, the novel, drama and poetry are all covered and writers include acclaimed British playwright David Hare, best-selling Chinese writer Jung Chang and US novelist Toni Morrison who has won both the Pulitzer and Nobel prizes.

The festival is opened by Cherie Blair. The practicing barrister and wife of former Prime Minister Tony Blair will be talking about her life, following the recent publication of her much talked about autobiography ‘Speaking for Myself’.

“Once again we are absolutely thrilled with the quality and variety of writers coming to the University of East Anglia this autumn,” said festival organiser Prof Chris Bigsby.

“We have three writers from America, one a winner of the Nobel Prize and one, Australian by birth, a Pulitzer Prize winner. We also have Jung Chang from China talking about Mao Tse-Tung, and one of Ireland's finest writers, Sebastian Barry. So, truly international.”

The full line-up is as follows:

Monday 29 September
CHERIE BLAIR
Cherie Blair was born in 1954. She holds a First Class degree in law and is a practicing barrister specialising in human rights cases. She has, on occasion, represented claimants taking cases against the government and has appeared before the European Court of Justice in a case concerning discrimination. She is also, however, the mother of four children and the wife of Tony Blair. Speaking for Myself: The Autobiography appeared in 2008.

Wednesday 8 October
DAVID LODGE
David Lodge was born in 1935. He is Emeritus Professor of English Literature at the University of Birmingham and has published many academic books. His many novels include The British Museum is Falling Down, Nice Work, Small World, Therapy and Author, Author. His latest work is Deaf Sentence. He has also written for the stage and for television. His many awards include the Whitbread Book of the Year, the Writers’ Guild Award and the Commonwealth Writers Prize.

Monday 13 October
DAVID GUTERSON
David Gutterson was born in Seattle in 1956 where he went to the University of Washington. He worked as a teacher for twelve years during which time he began to write. His first novel, Snow Falling on Cedars, won the PEN Faulkner Award and sold four million copies. Subsequent novels include East of the Mountains and Our Lady of the Forest. His latest is The Other.

Thursday 16 October
GERALDINE BROOKS
Geraldine Brooks was born in Australia, growing up in the suburbs of Sydney where she studied at the University of Sydney. She later worked for the Wall Street Journal, working in the Balkans, the Middle East and Africa. In 1996, she won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel March, following this with Year of Wonders and People of the Book. She is also the author of non-fiction books, including Nine Parts of Desire.

Wednesday 22 October
DAVID HARE
David Hare was born in 1947 and is a graduate of Cambridge University. A co-founder of the Portable Theatre Company, he has been one of the country’s leading playwrights for forty years. Among his many plays are Plenty, Racing Demon, Murmuring Judges, The Absence of War, Via Dolorosa and Stuff Happens. He has also written for the cinema, including a screenplay of Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections. He was knighted in 1998.

Wednesday 29 October
TONI MORRISON
Toni Morrison was born Chloe Wofford in 1931. A graduate of Howard University, in Washington DC, her novels include The Bluest Eye, Beloved, Jazz, Paradise, Love and A Mercy. Her non-fiction works include The Black Book and Remember: The Journey to School Integration. She is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize and in 1993 won the Nobel Prize. Until recently, she was a professor at Princeton University.

Wednesday 12 November
RICHARD HOLMES
Richard Holmes was born in 1945 and is a graduate of Cambridge University. He is the author of a series of ground-breaking biographies on Chatterton, Shelley and Coleridge. His many other books include Sidetracks: Explorations of a Romantic Biographer and, now, The Age of Wonder. He is a winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and the Samuel Johnson Award, among several others.

Monday 17 November
SEBASTIAN BARRY
Sebastian Barry was born in Dublin in 1955. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin, he is the author of plays (including The Steward of Christendom and Our Lady of Sligo), novels (including The Long Long Way and The Pride of Parnell Street) and poems (The Pinkening Boy). He is the winner of the Ireland/America Literary Prize, the Critics’ Circle Award and the Writers’ Guild Award. His latest novel is Dallas Sweetman.

Monday 24 November
JUNG CHANG
Jung Chang was born in the Sichuan Province of China in 1952. She left China in 1978 and received a PhD from York University in 1982. She now lives in London.  She is the author of an autobiography, Wild Swans, which became an international best seller, selling ten million copies in 30 languages. Together with her husband, Jon Halliday, she is also the author of Mao: The Unknown Story.

For more information visit https://www1.uea.ac.uk/cm/home/schools/hum/booksandwriters/litfest . All readings take place in Lecture Theatre 1 at the University of East Anglia. All events begin at 7pm except the Cherie Blair event which begins at 6.30pm. Season tickets priced £48  (students and concs £42) and individual tickets priced £6 (no concs) are available from the UEA Box Office on 01603 508050.