Wordfest at home at Newnham

Cambridge Wordfest Spring 2010 has attracted master wordsmiths - from the 2009 Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel and bestselling novelist Philip Pullman, to award-winning screen-writer and novelist Hanif Kureishi and the BBC’s World Affairs Editor and acclaimed Foreign Correspondent, John Simpson.

Over many years, Newnham has played a key role in nurturing talented women writers, their work ranging from novels, screenplays, and poetry, to journalism and academic literature. The programme of Newnham Wordfest events will celebrate this rich heritage and support the project to expand the Newnham Literary Archive.

Newnham’s Wordfest events on Sunday 11 April include:

The Constant Liberal – The Life and Work of Phyllis Bottome
Newnham’s Graduate Tutor, the author and feminist academic, Pam Hirsch, takes a look at British novelist Phyllis Bottome who raised awareness of the Jewish plight in pre-war Germany and was an activist for victims of colonial injustice and racism. Her anti-Nazi novel, The Mortal Storm, became a blockbuster Hollywood film starring James Stewart. This extraordinary woman had equally extraordinary friends, including Ezra Pound, Daphne Du Maurier and Max Beerbohm. Pam Hirsch will discuss her recent biography of the author with Susan Sellars.
12 to 1pm

The Strange Case of the Composer and his Judge

Newnham alumna Patricia Duncker, (NC 1970) on her latest novel – a powerful mystery story with a deep ideological struggle at its heart. It starts on New Year's Day, 2000, with hunters on their way home through a forest in the Jura stumbling upon a half-circle of dead bodies lying in the freshly fallen snow. Learn more about The Strange Case of the Composer and his Judge and the work of Professor Duncker who teaches creative writing at the University of Manchester.
1.30 to 2.30pm

The Plot
Award-winning Guardian columnist Madeleine Bunting discusses her new book, The Plot: A biography of an English acre. The plot in question is an acre of the North Yorkshire moors which Bunting’s father bought and made his own and through which she now investigates the human need to be connected to a place and shape the land on which we live. Chaired by Newnham Fellow Emma Mawdsley.
3 to 4pm

The Flying Carpet to Baghdad
In this event, chaired by Newnham alumna Sian Kevill (NC 1979), prize-winning war correspondent Hala Jaber tells the incredible true story of a woman longing for a child, two small Iraqi girls in need of a mother, and what the love and grief between them can teach us about family, war and the hope for a future in war. Hala Jaber has won several major awards for her journalism including Amnesty International Journalist of the Year in 2003, Foreign Correspondent of the Year at the British Press Awards in 2005 and 2006 and the Martha Gellhorn Prize in 2007.

4.30 to 5.30pm

The Illusion of Gender Equality
Today it is widely believed that feminism has achieved its aims, and that women and men have achieved equality. But do the facts support this? Two thirds of the world’s illiterates are women and only 20% of the world’s parliamentary members are women, while a mere 5% of reported rapes in the UK result in a conviction. This debate on gender equality will be chaired by the Chief Executive of the Fawcett Society, Ceri Goddard. It will include contributions from Kat Banyard, author of the The Equality Illusion and Co-Director of UK Feminista, and from writer Abi Grant whose book, Words Can Describe tells of her own experience of rape and the impact it had on her life.

6 to 7pm

To book please contact the ADC Box Office for tickets on 01223 300085 or www.adctheatre.com. 

For full Festival details and a programme please follow link on sidebar.