Marlborough marlborough literature festival 28 September to 1 October 2017 Welcome Kayo Will Self to LitFest 2017 Chingonyi The Golding Speaker Photo: Naomi Woddis Photo:

Our lovely town of Marlborough brings ‘Movement allowed me to write poetry.’ intersection of oral and written traditions. ‘I don’t really write for readers.’ shortlisted for the Man Booker. His together residents as well as visitors from latest, Phone, the final in the trilogy, further afield for a weekend of glorious Zambia to England. Newcastle, London, Kayo is joined at Marlborough LitFest by Will Self has described being a writer is a satirical examination of how literary celebrations and festivities. We Sheffield, Essex. Kayo Chingonyi is a poet the wonderful dancer and choreographer as a privilege and a delight but he has we have become constrained by the have such a full programme, bursting with for whom location exists in language. He Sean Graham. It is a scintillating no audience in mind. Although highly very technologies that promised us great names, over-spilling with events and was recently introduced on Ian McMillan’s collaboration exploring Chingonyi’s entertaining, when asked whether his liberation. In the tradition of Dickens buzzing with activities. Radio 3 poetry programme as ‘an up central themes: the transition between glass is half full or half empty the answer and others, his work is frequently and coming star’ and his first collection two worlds, ancestral and contemporary; is neither, but a glass which has the inspired by long walks in and out of the A special thanks this year to all the Kumukanda has been described as ‘a between the living and the dead; bottom broken. urban landscape, perhaps also to clear volunteers, organisers and sponsors who brilliant debut – tender, nostalgic and at between the gulf of who he is and how his mind of the prison of screen-based have kept things afloat. If you’d like to get times darkly hilarious.’ he is perceived. Underpinned by a love of He is author technology. involved for 2018, please let us know. music, language and literature, here is a of more than Activity, trains, accents, crossing places powerful exploration of race, identity and twenty books Will has written for , We look forward to seeing you. - these are all inspirational. The multiple masculinity celebrating what it means to including novels, Evening Standard and The Observer. frames of reference that shape Kayo’s be British and not British, all at once. short stories and His intellect is rarely doubted and Best wishes work are evident in his musical tastes 28 September is National Poetry Day. non-fiction. In will be familiar to viewers of Question which unabashedly range from Dolly 2008 he won the Time, Have I Got News For You and LitFest Committee Parton to Wookie. Drawing on literary Tickets £10 Bollinger Everyman as well as to Radio 4 Tickets £12 theory, hip hop, contemporary British Venue Ellis Theatre, Marlborough College Wodehouse Prize listeners. With no audience in mind he Venue Town Hall and American poetry, sampling and Date Thursday 28 September 7.30pm and his recent clearly enjoys a large one in practice. Date Friday 29 September 7.30pm music production, he is interested in the novel Umbrella was

Box Office 01249 701628 3 Stories can have an amazing power and at the Edinburgh Book Festival in August. reading opens infinite worlds of opportunity. His first teen novel,Mortal Chaos, was nominated for 12 awards including the We are running a series of events to help Carnegie Medal. stimulate a passion for reading amongst the For invited schools only. young, from aged under 5 to teenagers and Edmund Gordon young adults. Please also see Francesca The Invention of Angela Carter Simon’s event on page 27.

The Big School Read In Angela Carter’s version of Little Red This new authorised biography of Carter with Matt Dickinson Riding Hood, the girl doesn’t struggle with is the first major study of one of the most ‘God’s very powerful. One day he kills people, the wolf, she goes to bed with him. important and enigmatic post-war writers. on others he lets people get to the top.’ Jason Beresford The Bloody Chamber, Carter’s collection Edmund Gordon is In the pre-monsoon Everest season of Storytelling Already devoured the David Walliams of fairy tales updated with a modern a lecturer in English 1996 Dickinson made a successful ascent Storyteller Teresa Masterson has delighted children’s books? Look no further, Jason sensibility and sensuality, is perhaps her at King’s College of Mount Everest’s notorious North young children at previous readings. We Beresford is the author of the fabulous most famous work. Her world explored London. A regular Face, beating hurricane-force winds and are running two sessions one Four Fish Fingers and Frozen Fish Fingers, two the fine line between human nature contributor to the temperatures of minus 70 degrees Celsius. with Teresa and one with local laugh-out-loud books about a gang of and animal nature. It was a strange TLS and the London Three of the eight deaths on Everest that nursery teacher Tor Burt. superhero kids. These forest of folk mythology, Freudian dream Review of Books, he day were on the North Face. have received acclaim interpretation, surrealism and feminist- has written for many His written account of No Tickets Required - suitable for Under 5s from critics, praise inspired political savvy. publications which the same expedition, The Venue Library, Marlborough High Street from educators and include Bookforum Death Zone, has been Date Friday 29 September 10.30am silly giggles from 8 year But did Carter create her own mythology as and . published to critical and olds who love jokes a new kind of writer, or was this persona popular acclaim in more about pants. His third shaped by her real life? This encompassed than fifteen different No Tickets Required - suitable for Under 8s book, Fish Fingers vs being molly-coddled, periods of both obesity Tickets £10 countries. Killer Storm is Venue White Horse Bookshop Nuggets, is due out in and anorexia, radicalisation in Japan, giving Venue Town Hall the third book in the Everest Files fictional Date Saturday 30 September 10.30am 2017. birth at age 43 and sadly culminating in Date Saturday 30 September 10.30am Photo: Nick Tucker Photo:

Educational LitFest Educational trilogy for teenagers. It will be launched For invited schools only. early death from lung cancer.

4 www.marlboroughlitfest.org Box Office 01249 701628 5 Keggie Carew Daniel Shand Dadland Winner of the Betty Trask Prize

‘I’m sorry Keggie was not at school today. Dadland is a highly The Betty Trask Prize is for first novels by Edinburgh Sloan Prize She had a bad hangover.’ accomplished and authors under the age of 35. for fiction and the moving account of a University of Dundee Tom Carew never let rules get in the courageous, maverick It has a track record of spotting stars of Creative Writing way, especially when they contradicted father, as well as the future and past winners include Zadie Award. common sense - his own common sense, Keggie Carew’s own Smith, Evie Wyld, Adam Foulds, Sarah that is. Perhaps this gave him an extra experience of family Waters and Chibundu Onuzo. His novel, Fallow, is edge as an SOE officer in World War II. life. It’s also one a tense and at times which nearly didn’t The winner of the 2017 Prize is debut darkly comic novel Surprise, Kill, Vanish. This was the happen. As Keggie novelist Daniel Shand. Born in Kirkcaldy in about the relationship motto of Operation Jedburgh which saw sadly observed her 1989, Daniel currently lives in Edinburgh, between two brothers The power between the brothers begins to the 24 year old Tom Carew parachute father’s memory fading, following a series where he is a PhD candidate at the bound by a terrible crime. Paul and Mikey shift, and we realise there is more to their into Nazi-occupied France under of strokes and the onset of dementia, University of Edinburgh and a Scottish are on the run, apparently from the press history than Paul has allowed us to know.

Photo: Lily McMillan Lily Photo: cover of night. Having worked with the completing the book became a race literature tutor. surrounding their house after Mikey’s French Resistance, including an escape against time. Tom was losing his past as release from prison. His crime – child through a sewer, he won the Croix de Keggie was frantically trying to rebuild it. His shorter work has been published murder, committed when he was a boy. As Tickets £10 Tickets £10 Venue Town Hall Guerre. Months later he was helping in a number of magazines and he has they travel, they move from one disturbing Venue White Horse Bookshop Date Saturday 30 September 12 noon the Burmese guerrillas to thwart the Dadland won the Costa Award for Best performed at the Edinburgh International scenario to the next, eventually involving Date Saturday 30 September 12 noon Japanese forces. Biography in 2016. Book Festival. He won the University of themselves with a bizarre religious cult.

6 www.marlboroughlitfest.org Box Office 01249 701628 7 Translation Duel Xiaolu Guo One Hundred Years of Solitude Once Upon A Time In The East

Margaret Jull Costa is a British translator Their chair, Daniel Hahn, is a writer, editor In China identity is a straightjacket remarkable, she writes in her second of Portuguese and Spanish fiction and and translator. Much of his work has a imposed upon you. It’s not about the self. language, following in the footsteps of poetry. She has been translating for over particular focus on international writing, Conrad, Beckett and Kundera. 20 years and won the 1997 IMPAC Award translation or children’s literature. In 2013 Xiaolu Guo was named one of the for Javier Marías’ A best young British novelists of the decade, ‘When you change your language to write Heart So White and the The panel will discuss a text taken from an accolade previously awarded to the it’s a big freedom, and a scary freedom… The various translations of War and Peace 2006 Premio Valle- Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years Of likes of Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis I’m still learning…all my sensibilities are differ so widely that one could almost be Inclán for the first Solitude. and Zadie Smith. Growing up in a remote still very Eastern.’ reading several different books. But which volume of his trilogy fishing village in a very rigid communist is closest to Tolstoy’s original Russian? Your Face Tomorrow: society, her Xiaolu’s work is fuelled by identity, Such is the dilemma for the translator - Fever and Spear. transformation has alienation and lovelessness, and inspired literal accuracy or spiritual proximity. been astounding. by the free spiritedness of the Nouvelle Rosalind Harvey is Vague, the Beats and Punk. A Concise Our LitFest ‘Translation Duel’ challenges a literary translator Having been Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers was two eminent translators to explore the and Teaching Fellow at the University of bored by film shortlisted for the 2007 Orange Prize for problems and options they face. Warwick. Her translation of Juan Pablo at film school, Fiction. Her latest book, Once Upon A Time Villalobos’ debut novel Down the Rabbit Hole the subsequent In The East, is a memoir of her struggles Tickets £10 was shortlisted for the 2011 Guardian First decade was prolific with, and escape from, the constraints of Tickets £10 Venue St Mary’s Church Hall Book Award and the Oxford-Weidenfeld both in her movie gender, poverty and state interference. Venue St. Mary’s Church Hall Date Saturday 30 September 12 noon Prize. She is a founding member and chair making and novel Date Saturday 30 September 1.30pm of the Emerging Translators Network. writing. Even more

8 www.marlboroughlitfest.org Box Office 01249 701628 9 Tony Brenton Gwendoline Riley Historically Inevitable? First Love

‘This is a hooligan movement ... all this and that another outcome was possible if will pass and become calm.’ some circumstances had taken a different turn. The Empress Alexandra of Russia’s view was in stark contrast to that of Marx who Sir Tony’s career has included held that the progression of society from instrumental work on energy issues, the capitalism to communism was inevitable. birth of European environment policy and ‘A singular, devastating journey into the keen gig-going habit (Morrissey being a A simple gesture or utterance can change Hence the title of Sir Tony Brenton’s new the 1992 ‘Earth Summit’ which achieved ungovernable reaches of the heart.’ favourite). everything, can either rip a person’s world collection of fourteen essays - Historically the first global agreement on Climate apart or transform their life for the better. Inevitable? From the world’s foremost Change. He was Chargé d’Affaires in Gwendoline Riley’s men are often self- Riley is currently on top form. She was Her writing has been compared to Woolf, experts on Russian history, such as Washington, and aggrandising, pompous and misogynist. shortlisted for the Bailey’s Women’s Prize Fitzgerald and Rhys amongst others, but all Orlando Figes, Richard Pipes and Martin subsequently British Realistic? It isn’t 2017 and has won the Betty Trask and such comments miss the point. Gwendoline Sixsmith, this volume includes new and Ambassador in that she tries not to Somerset Maugham awards. She’s that Riley’s style is her own. ‘I fully expect the ground-breaking work. Moscow. He speaks compromise, more an rare thing, a truly literary novelist with next interesting, stiletto-sharp, debut novel Russian and Arabic, inability to do so. Much a highly credible, gritty, even kitchen- by a woman under thirty to be described as Each contribution gives a fast-paced is a Fellow of Wolfson of the uncompromising sinkish depiction of postmodern life. Her Riley-esque.’ Stuart Kelly, The Scotsman account of an individual aspect of the College Cambridge realism in her writing latest novel, First Love, being no exception Tickets £10 revolution together with, for the first and is currently has been gleaned from with its devastating yet witty dialogue, Tickets £10 Venue Town Hall time, an intriguing analysis of what might writing a book on working in Manchester narrative and characterisation. Venue White Horse Bookshop Date Saturday 30 September 1.30pm have been. Brenton’s conclusion is that Peter the Great’s bars, walking around Date Saturday 30 September 1.30pm

Bolshevism was not inevitable for Russia, Russia. Pictures Adrian Lourie Writer Photo: the city and even a Her work is both expansive and intricate.

10 www.marlboroughlitfest.org Box Office 01249 701628 11 John O’Farrell Kit Wharton Things Can Only Get Worse Emergency Admissions

‘.....as the Labour candidate I prepared for One of a small Required reading for the Health Secretary. people live in. What the working man and every possible question on the local number of British woman in public service face, on a daily radio election phone-in. What I had not writers to have An S&M party gone horribly wrong. A basis, is astonishing. prepared for was my mum ringing up to achieved best- dead man locked in a car with a hungry say that she agreed with John O’Farrell. On seller status with bull terrier. A teenage girl with suspicious Great fun, fast-paced and with plenty of everything!’ both fiction and abdominal pains. A man who has fainted, black humour, Wharton’s tales lightly veil non-fiction, his frightened he was allergic to his cheese the broken state of so much of our society. In the follow-up to his classic memoir, books have been and onion sandwich ... just another day’s If he occasionally sounds a little detached Things Can Only Get Better: Eighteen Miserable translated into work. it’s because he knows he’ll soon be off to Years in the Life of a Labour Supporter, over twenty-five deal with yet another crisis. John O’Farrell takes us on a sometimes languages and Kit Wharton followed his heavy-drinking hilarious, sometimes heart-breaking been adapted for parents into journalism, but it wasn’t for roller-coaster ride, from the highs of the radio and television. A former comedy him. Now he has found the job he loves. Labour victory in 1997 to the lows of Brexit. scriptwriter for Spitting Image and Have As a driver for the NHS ambulance service A lifelong Labour supporter, in 2013 he I Got News For You, his previous books each 999 call can hurtle him into the was selected as the Labour candidate in include The Man Who Forgot His Wife, May critical moment of another person’s life. the Eastleigh by-election, caused by the Contain Nuts and The Best a Man Can Get. resignation of Chris Huhne. He slightly And all life is here too, not just the great Tickets £10 Tickets £10 Venue Town Hall increased Labour’s share of the vote, but and the good - who already receive ample Venue St Mary’s Church Hall Date Saturday 30 September 3pm finished fourth. In 2015 he announced he coverage at literature festivals - but the Date Saturday 30 September 3pm was not intending to stand for Parliament. terrible circumstances that so many

12 www.marlboroughlitfest.org Box Office 01249 701628 13 William Golding’s Legacy Kamila Shamsie Home Fire Judy Carver and Nicola Presley ‘If you’re going to write something her first novel,In The ‘Kill the pig, cut her throat, spill her blood.’ Inheritors, the rigid hierarchy and you know it completely, don’t City by the Sea, while on board ship in Rites of bother.’ still in college. It was Is a nightmarish vision of society William Passage. shortlisted for the John Golding’s chief legacy? Kamila Shamsie believes Llewellyn Rhys Prize Golding’s daughter, Judy writers need to take risks and in the UK. Her second The place of Lord of The Flies on the Carver, together with Nicola write about the unfamiliar, novel, Salt and Saffron, curriculum over the decades has ensured Presley, lecturer in English even if it means not pulling it followed in 2000, after that Golding’s warnings about human at Bath Spa University, will off entirely. Writing is a voyage which she was selected instinct have reached millions. It has been discuss just how pervasive of discovery for the author as as one of Orange’s filmed, re-written, drawn and generally Golding’s influence on much as for the reader. She is 21 Writers of the 21st century. Her fifth parodied countless times. popular culture has become. one of Pakistan’s most prolific novel Burnt Shadows was shortlisted for novelists (although now living the Orange Prize for Fiction and won an Today much is made 2017 is the 50th anniversary of The Pyramid, mainly in London) and is the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for fiction. of a starkly divided Golding’s eminently readable novel set latest of four generations society riven with envy, in a thinly disguised Marlborough. His of writers. Her mother, Her latest book is Home Fire and tells the competitiveness and relationship with our beautiful town was Muneeza Shamsie, is story of a family ripped apart by secrets violence. Of course it’s not generally a happy one. However, the leading critic on and driven to pit love against loyalty. all there in Golding’s without the fears incubated growing up in Pakistani Anglophone micro-communities - the family home on The Green, Golding’s writing. Tickets £10 Tickets £10 Venue White Horse Bookshop the base savagery in legacy would surely be poorer. We might be Venue Town Hall Date Saturday 30 September 3pm Lord of The Flies, the fear without such masterpieces as Lord of The Born in Karachi in Date Saturday 30 September 4.30pm

of the ‘other’ in The Flies, Pincher Martin or Darkness Visible. Zain Mustafa Photo: 1973, Shamsie wrote

14 www.marlboroughlitfest.org Box Office 01249 701628 15 Graeme Macrae Burnet Fiona Maddocks His Bloody Project Music for Life

Roddy Macrae has brutally murdered three the Man Booker in 2016 ‘If music be the food of love, play on.’ familiar masterworks people. Fact. for his novel His Bloody together with little- Project. It examines Music and literature make an intoxicating known musical gems. But why did he do it, and how does Fact the same crime from harmony. Fiona Maddocks, the chief music For instance ‘Land, Sea differ from Truth? The savagery of Roddy’s multiple standpoints critic of The Observer, is author of three and Air’ sets Debussy’s murders is echoed in a harsh 1869 and reinvents the books, the latest being Music for Life. La Mer alongside Highland setting, where the convicted psychological thriller Harrison Birtwistle’s are viewed as sub-human, a species with in an intriguing format, The idea for the book is to provide music Silbury Air (the latter hereditary and irreversible criminal traits. deploying case notes, that sustains us at different times in our likely to be of particular The authorities - medics, lawyers, trial reports, cross lives. Fiona has unashamedly chosen interest to local LitFest newspapers, psychiatrists and the local examination, witness accounts and media pieces that work for her personally. goers). Meanwhile ‘Journeys, Exile’ strongman - exert the full weight of their reportage. Each suggestion is accompanied by a contains Chopin’s famous 24 Preludes as power and superiority to try and crush the complementary image (many courtesy well as Amériques by the relatively obscure 17- year-old crofter. Graeme is one of Scotland’s brightest of her husband’s black and white yet highly influential Edgar Varèse. literary talents. Born and brought up in photography collection) and a fascinating Graeme Macrae Burnet was shortlisted for Kilmarnock, he worked as an English back story such as Rachmaninoff’s dismay The book serves as a fascinating and teacher in Europe and in television. His Jen Cunnion Photo: on seeing American audiences’ faces drop informative read for aficionados, whilst first novel,The Disappearance of Adèle Award. His third, The Accident on the A35, when he announces that he’ll be playing providing a useful introduction to the eager Tickets £10 Tickets £10 Venue St Mary’s Church Hall Bedeau, received a New Writer’s Award featuring Georges Gorski, the haunted his (sublime) First Piano Concerto. would-be classical music lover. During the Venue White Horse Bookshop Date Saturday 30 September 4.30pm from the Scottish Book Trust and was detective from his first book, will be event Fiona will play a selection to share Date Saturday 30 September 4.30pm longlisted for the Waverton Good Read published in October. What we end up with is an eclectic mix of with her audience.

16 www.marlboroughlitfest.org Box Office 01249 701628 17 Frank Gardner Sarah Hall Crisis Madame Zero

‘I remember the expression of the man Life with the veneer of civilisation community of Cumbrian hill-farmers, who shot me.’ stripped off. The Electric Michelangelo, a biography of a fictional tattoo artist and The Carhullan Frank Gardner OBE is the BBC’s full Sarah Hall is not your stereotypical Army, a science fiction novel set in a time security correspondent as well writer. A background in rural Cumbria, a repressive, militaristic Britain where as a territorial army officer and highly love of both rugby and wild swimming, a fanatics go up into the mountains and successful author. In 2004 he was shot by preparedness to embrace political issues use them to their advantage. Her latest terrorists and paralysed for life. Despite - just a few aspects that set Sarah apart. collection of short stories, Madame Zero, is the extreme pain he still endures, he has For example, few of her urban friends ‘get published by Faber. only taken two days off work in the last the countryside’. Aside from an immense nine years because of his injuries. Colin Thomas Photo: talent with words, The issue of gender features strongly in Jackets and Regular Army Reserve, Frank where the action takes place against the maybe this refreshing her work, and she is comfortable writing He was educated at Marlborough College worked in oil and investment banking complex, hugely contemporary setting of perspective helped about sex, unlike many novelists. She and then Exeter University, from where he before joining the BBC. modern day Iran. secure her a place is irritated that male readers don’t read gained a BA in Arabic and Islamic Studies. in Granta’s 20 best books by women writers, but also finds it a As well as serving in the Royal Green Frank is author of two non-fictional His injuries don’t prevent Frank from young writers of the challenge. accounts of his travels, particularly in the pursuing his love of skiing and he is a keen decade. Middle East. His first novel,Crisis , was birdwatcher. Frank has also written for Sarah has won multiple awards and been Tickets £12 Tickets £10 Venue Town Hall published in 2016 and became an instant The Economist, Daily Telegraph and Time Haweswater is a rural twiceVenue nominated White Horse for Bookshop the Man Booker Prize. Date Saturday 30 September 6pm bestseller. His latest fictional work is Out and has been published in The Best of tragedy about the Date Saturday 30 September 6pm

Ultimatum (to be published in November) Sunday Times Travel Writing. Nadav Kander Photo: disintegration of a

18 www.marlboroughlitfest.org Box Office 01249 701628 19 Marlborough A Bookish Kind of Town

David Mitchell is the bestselling author of The Bone Clocks and Cloud Atlas. He is also Collectable Book Roadshow Poetry In The Pub Creative Writing Workshop co-translator of Naoki Higashida’s autism Do you have a potentially valuable book? At this perennial LitFest favourite we run an for Adults, with Stephen May memoirs The Reason I Jump, Fall Down 7 Times, British art dealer and long-established Open Mic session hosted by Alex Hickman. Stephen May is an old friend of LitFest Get Up 8. rare book dealer Christopher Gange would and an author of four novels including love to appraise it for you. Just bring your This year we are asking for poems on the Costa Prize short-listed Life! Death! Mitchell’s novels reflect the fact that stories book(s) along to Katharine House Gallery the theme of Freedom. We invite all of Prizes! He is also a sought-after creative are made out of perspectives on in The Parade and find out more. whatever age to submit poems on this writing tutor and has worked for the highly events rather than the events themselves. theme. Kayo Chingonyi, who opens LitFest prestigious The Arvon Foundation. They frequently cross time zones, locations, on National Poetry Day, will be joining this No Tickets Required David viewpoints and genres. Thriller, ghost story, session. Suitable for both shy beginners as Venue Katharine House Gallery, The Parade science fiction, love story, fairytale may Date Sunday 1 October 10.30 - 12.30pm well as the more Mitchell co-exist within a single book. To participate submit a poem in advance to experienced, this Short Stories Alex at [email protected] or fun and stimulating Twice shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Rare Books you can simply turn up on the day with your workshop witll cover he was named one of the most influential Marlborough College holds an important poem. Poems submitted in advance will generating plot, people in the world by Time Magazine in and significant collection of rare books be read first. Alex Hickman blogs atwww. structure, dialogue, 2007. In 2003 Mitchell was named as one of and manuscripts ranging in date from the stuffhappens.org character development Granta’s best young novelists. fifteenth century to modern times. There and redrafting as well will be an opportunity to examine and Non-poets are welcome to come too - we as giving insights into David will read two or three short stories handle the books. hear the ale is good! publishing. on the subjects of gardens, autism and time’s elasticity. These stories are currently Tickets £10 (Fifteen places only) Tickets £12 Tickets No Tickets Required Tickets £25 (Sixteen places only) Venue The£x Smoking Room C1, Venue Town Hall only available in spoken form for the Venue Town Hall Venue The Bear Hotel, High Street Venue Katharine House Gallery, The Parade Date Saturday 30 September 7.30pm Marlborough LitFest audience. The readings DateMarlborough College Date Sunday 1 October 1pm Date Sunday 1 October 2.30 - 5pm Date SaturdaySunday 1 30October September 2.30pm 6pm Photo: Paul Stuart Paul Photo: will be followed by Q&A.

20 www.marlboroughlitfest.org Box Office 01249 701628 21 Vanessa Lafaye JS Monroe At First Light Find Me

A woman of 96 goes home, gets out a gun was spent mainly in ‘A girlfriend of mine from university had died - characterisation but Jon’s novels are imbued and shoots dead a wheelchair-bound man Tampa, Florida. She years later I saw her at Paddington Station.’ with a deliciously 21st century cynicism. older than herself in the middle of a Key has subsequently West street during a Ku Klux Klan rally. lived in North This scene has haunted the author for much After reading English at Cambridge University, Carolina, Paris and of his adult life and inspired his new novel he worked as a freelance journalist in This may sound far fetched, but At First Oxford, but is now Find Me. London, was Delhi correspondent for the Light is based on historical facts dating happily settled in Daily Telegraph and also wrote for The back to Florida Keys in 1921 when a white Marlborough. After JS Monroe is the pseudonym of journalist Week magazine in India. He has contributed man was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan for suffering cancer and novelist Jon Stock, who wrote the Daniel regularly to BBC Radio 4. refusing to cease his relationship with a she developed many Marchant (or ‘Legoland’) trilogy comprising mixed race brothel keeper. positives from the Dead Spy Running, Games Traitors Play and His first novel,The Riot Act, was shortlisted by experience, such as her new found love of Dirty Little Secret. Warner the Crime Writers’ Association for its best first Vanessa’s debut, Summertime, a huge leading Marlborough Community Choir. Brothers bought the film novel award. It was subsequently published by Richard and Judy Book Club hit, told the rights in 2008 and Oscar- Gallimard as part of the acclaimed Serié Noir. interweaving tale of two storms brewing Vanessa will be talking about scandals, winner Stephen Gaghan A film of the book is currently in development. concurrently - one the simmering tensions shame, and secrets and the writing of was hired to write the Jon Stock lives near Marlborough. between white, black and First World ‘Inconvenient History’. original screenplay. Tickets £10 War veteran communities, the other the Tickets £10 Venue White Horse Bookshop biggest hurricane in US history. There will be free key lime tarts for the There are echoes Venue White Horse Bookshop Date Sunday 1 October 10.30am first 10 people through the door. of Buchan, Fleming Date Sunday 1 October 12 noon

Born in Tallahassee, Vanessa’s childhood Hilary Stock Photo: and Le Carré in his

22 www.marlboroughlitfest.org Box Office 01249 701628 23 John Boyne Mahsuda Snaith & Xan Brooks The Heart’s Invisible Furies Hiscox Debut Authors

The sin of teenage pregnancy. A girl is or an adult book, it’s just a book. Two debut novelists - both included in this shamed in front of her family and the year’s prestigious Observer New Faces of congregation. She is kicked out of the He was born in Ireland, in 1971, and Fiction. church. studied English Literature at Trinity College, Dublin and Creative Writing at the Ever since her best friend disappeared The Heart’s Invisible Furies is only Boyne’s University of East Anglia. ten years ago, Ravine has lain in bed in second novel about Ireland. However, the a council flat and, plagued by chronic Emerald Isle has been on an incredible In 2012, Boyne was awarded the Hennessy pain syndrome, isn’t planning to move. journey and it’s amazing to think that Literary ‘Hall of Fame’ Award. He has won Mahsuda Snaith’s The Things We Thought We of community.’ The beautifully rounded immediately obvious why, and it is not homosexuality was illegal there little over three Irish Book Knew is a knowing portrayal of estate life. characters will appeal to fans of We Are All comforting to find out. 25 years ago. The wounds of the past are Awards, the Que Completely Beside Ourselves and The Unlikely still sore for Boyne, having rejected the Leer Award in Spain Born in Luton to Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. Xan spent his rude youth as part of the church with vehement rage as a teenager. and the Gustav Bengali parents, founding editorial team of the The Big Heinemann Peace Mahsuda has lived You may not imagine that the disturbing Issue magazine and his respectable John Boyne is best known for The Boy Prize in Germany. in Leicester since events in The Clocks in This House All Tell middle period as an associate editor at the In Striped Pyjamas, which has sold over the age of six. Different Times by Xan Brooks can be taken Guardian, specialising in film. nine million copies and was made into ‘My experience of from reality, but they are. Four ex-soldiers Tickets £10 a successful feature film. He has also growing up was that from the First World War, named after Tickets £10 Venue Town Hall written ten novels for adults but isn’t keen there were lots of characters from The Wizard of Oz, and Venue White Horse Bookshop Date Sunday 1 October 12 noon to differentiate between audiences. As he brilliant, eccentric a group of four teenagers meet every Date Sunday 1 October 1.30pm says, Treasure Island isn’t a children’s book people, and a sense Sunday night in Epping Forest. It is not

24 www.marlboroughlitfest.org Box Office 01249 701628 25 Tim Marshall Francesca Simon Worth Dying For: The Monstrous Child The Power and Politics of Flags If you’re going to punish an angry over 50 books for children of all ages. Shot at in Cairo, hit over the head in After 30 years’ experience in news teenager, don’t make her Queen of the She studied Medieval Studies at Yale and London, bruised by police in Tehran, reporting and presenting, Tim left full-time Dead. Old and Middle English at Oxford. She is arrested by Serbian intelligence, detained news journalism to concentrate on writing a passionate ambassador for children’s in Damascus, declared persona non grata and analysis. His blog, Foreign Matters, was Welcome to the Underworld. Not London literacy. in Croatia, bombed by the RAF in Belgrade shortlisted for the Orwell Prize 2010. or Los Angeles, yet still inhabited by and tear-gassed all over the world. All part dysfunctional families and over-brimming Her most successful and irrepressible of the job for Tim Marshall. Tim’s first book,Shadowplay: The Overthrow with adolescent rage. Meet Hel, an creation is surely the infamous Horrid of Slobodan Milosevic, was a bestseller in ordinary teenager… and a goddess. Henry, who first appeared in 1994. Having worked his way up in journalism former Yugoslavia and continues to be Memorably illustrated by Tony Ross, he the hard way, Tim was Diplomatic Editor one of the most highly regarded accounts The Monstrous Child will appeal to anyone has gone on to conquer the globe. His and foreign correspondent for Sky News. of that period. Prisoners over 11 with a taste for adventures are published in 27 languages, He reported in the field from Bosnia, of Geography: Ten Maps the mythological, the and have sold millions of copies worldwide. Croatia and Serbia during the Balkan That Tell You Everything gothic or the macabre. In 2008, Horrid Henry and the Abominable wars of the 1990s and was one of the few You Need To Know About It was shortlisted for Snowman won the Children’s Book of the

Western journalists who stayed on during Global Politics, deservedly the Costa Book Award Year Award at the Galaxy British Book Giles Helen Photo: the Kosovo crisis to report from one of the remained in the best and the YA Book Prize. Awards. Tickets £10 main targets of NATO bombing raids. seller list for several Tickets £5 Venue Town Hall months. His fourth title Francesca is one of the Children who grew up with Henry may now Venue Town Hall Date Sunday 1 October 1.30pm In recent years he covered the conflicts in is Worth Dying For: The nation’s most popular be ready for Hel. Date Sunday 1 October 3pm Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. Power and Politics of Flags. authors and has written Suitable for children aged 11+

26 www.marlboroughlitfest.org Box Office 01249 701628 27 Annie Gray Jane Austen The Greedy Queen A performance

By the end of her reign Queen Victoria had 1600 to the present day. She conducts her ‘The person, be it gentleman or lady, who Stephen Siddall was Head of English a 45” waist and was less than 5ft 1” tall - a research both in libraries and in kitchens has not pleasure in a good novel, must be at The Leys School Cambridge, He has ‘black blob’. This was not a woman who (her own and other people’s). She also intolerably stupid.’ directed work for BBC2 as well as 15 didn’t like food. This was a woman who talks a lot! Renaissance plays for the university and really could eat for England, and did, as Several of us at LitFest would concur. city at the Cambridge Arts Theatre. For revealed by Annie Gray in her new book, These skills have been combined for Jane Austen, one of our greatest and The Horseshoe Theatre Company Stephen The Greedy Queen: Eating with Victoria. a career encompassing writing, public most-loved writers, lived some 50 miles has successfully put on Ibsen’s A Doll’s speaking, demos and workshops, working from here, in the Hampshire countryside. House and Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. He Food is a brilliant way to get under the skin in costume and consultancy. She regularly LitFest will recreate Jane with drawing- recently devised and directed The Monarch of past societies. Everyone eats, and the appears on Radio 4’s The Kitchen Cabinet room intimacy on your doorstep here in of Wit, a celebration of the life and writings choices we make reflect who we are and and BBC2’s Victorian Marlborough, courtesy of Stephen Siddall of John Donne. what we believe – that’s as true for the Bakers. (director) and an acclaimed actress. Victorians as it is for us today. By exploring what was eaten by whom, how it was The dialogue consists entirely of Austen’s cooked and how it was consumed, we can own words via extracts from her letters, shed light on everything from malnutrition novels and juvenilia, all celebrating the among the poor, to the innermost wit and variety of her lively mind. Much of Tickets £10 workings of the country house. her perceptive and satirical observation on Tickets £10 Venue White Horse Bookshop the social life of English country houses is Venue Adderley Room, Marlborough College Date Sunday 1 October 3pm Annie Gray specialises in the history of captured. Date Sunday 1 October 3pm food and dining in Britain from around

28 www.marlboroughlitfest.org Box Office 01249 701628 29 Nikesh Shukla with Coco Khan Laline Paull’s The Bees The Good Immigrant The Big Town Read

‘Immigrants steal women, jobs and edited this new book of essays by 21 ‘Accept. Obey. with a huge marauding wasp - her status benefits and are bad until they prove British writers of colour discussing race Serve.’ grows, revealing both the enemies within, their worth to society. Only if they win an and immigration in the UK. Some are and the sinister secrets that rule the hive. Olympic gold medal, a bake-off challenge hilarious, others will make you angry and The Bees by Laline or become a doctor do they become a embarrassed. It was shortlisted for Book Paull is the choice At the story’s inflexion point, Flora’s ‘good immigrant’.’ of the Year at the British Book Awards. for this year’s devotion to a life of service is Big Town Read. overwhelmed by fierce and forbidden The Referendum result seems to have Nikesh’s debut novel, Coconut Unlimited, The event is a maternal love and she embarks on a given permission to people who hid shortlisted for the Costa First Novel firm favourite at collision course with everything she holds under ‘Political Award, was described as ‘a riot of Marlborough most dear. Correctness Gone cringeworthy moments…made real LitFest, where Mad’ a licence to tell by Shukla’s talent for teen banter’. He the audience A society where the odds are stacked immigrants to go co-wrote Generation Vexed: What the Riots discusses a against you but you’re expected to home. Don’t Tell Us About Our Nation’s Youth and his specified book with the author. conform and comply. Sound familiar? second novel Meatspace has been highly It will to anyone attempting to provide

The Good Immigrant lauded in the media. Nikesh’s writing has Flora 717 is a worker bee born into the the required balance of financial and Adrian Peacock Photo: Photo: Sham Phat Photography Photo: is based on such a featured in and the lowest caste of her totalitarian hive emotional support for their loved ones. Tickets £10 premise. Guardian, BBC Radio 4 and BBC2. society. Though prepared to sacrifice Tickets £10 Venue White Horse Bookshop everything for the Queen and work herself The Bees won the Orion Book Award in Venue Town Hall Date Sunday 1 October 4.30pm Nikesh Shukla Coco Khan is a Guardian columnist and to death, she is a survivor and with each 2015 and is a huge bestseller. Laline’s Date Sunday 1 October 4.30pm has collected and one of the essay contributors. act of bravery - including a confrontation new novel is The Ice. 30 www.marlboroughlitfest.org Box Office 01249 701628 31 Craig Brown Sponsors & Friends of LitFest Ma’am Darling

The committee of the Marlborough LitFest We would love your support. Please Graphics: Aly Storey 07787 500590 She made John Lennon blush and Marlon heckled her. Peter Sellers was in love with would like to thank Broo Doherty and consider becoming a Golden Friend with Cover illustration: Robin Heighway-Bury Brando clam up. She cold-shouldered her. For Pablo Picasso, she was the object Stephen May for their invaluable help and an annual donation of £500. Print: Thoroughbred Design & Print 01460 240773 Website: www.ghostlimited.com Princess Diana and humiliated Elizabeth of sexual fantasy. advice for putting together the programme. PR: Fran Del Mar 01672 811482 Taylor. Andy We cannot run the festival without the Marlborough LitFest Registered Charity No.1149252 Warhol In her 1950’s heyday, Princess Margaret We would also like to thank the following generous support of our volunteers. photographed her. was seen as one of the most glamorous for their generous support: The Society If you are interested in joining the Jack Nicholson and desirable women in the world. By of Authors, Katharine House Gallery, team, please contact us at general@ offered her the time of her death, she had come to White Horse Bookshop, The Reading marlboroughlitfest.org cocaine. Gore personify disappointment. One friend said Agency, Marlborough Library, St John’s Vidal revered he had never known an unhappier woman. International Academy, Marlborough The White Horse Bookshop sells LitFest her. John Fowles News Online, Pound Arts, Waitrose, Reflex tickets and helps promote our authors. wanted her as Ma’am Darling is a kaleidoscopic Productions, Gazette and Herald, Ben Please support your local bookshop. his sex-slave. experiment in biography, and a witty Phillips Photography. Dudley Moore meditation on fame and art, snobbery and propositioned her. deference, bohemia and high society. Golden Friends: Peter and Louise Page, Francis Bacon Susie Fisher, Vivien Clark, Philip and Tanya Craig Brown has been a national journalist books. His last, One On One, was a New Cayford, Marianne and Bob Benton, Kay Tickets £12 for 40 years, and is the only person ever York Times bestseller and was described and David Tyler, Chris Gange and Lillian Venue Town Hall to win in three different categories – by Simon Sebag Montefiore as ‘a brilliant Leadbetter, Hans and Jen Krohn. Date Sunday 1 October 6pm columnist, critic, humourist – at the UK comic masterpiece by the greatest Press Awards. He is the author of 18 humourist in America or Britain today.’

32 www.marlboroughlitfest.org 33 Event Listings, Booking & Venues The White Horse Bookshop The Town Hall is conveniently located within a A late Victorian building THURSDAY 1.30pm 6pm 1.30pm minute’s walk from the Town Hall on which dominates the east 7.30pm XIAOLU GUO FRANK GARDNER TIM MARSHALL the north side of the High Street. end of the High Street. KAYO CHINGONYI St. Mary’s Church Hall Town Hall Town Hall The Assembly Room is Marlborough College 1.30pm 6pm 2.30pm the main festival venue. TONY BRENTON SARAH HALL CREATIVE WRITING The Court Room will be FRIDAY Town Hall White Horse Bookshop Katharine House Gallery a bookshop and café for 10.30am 1.30pm 7.30pm 2.30pm STORYTELLING DAVID MITCHELL the weekend. Parking is GWENDOLINE RILEY RARE BOOKS available in the High Street Marlborough Library White Horse Bookshop Town Hall Marlborough College P White Horse Bookshop or in Waitrose car park, 7.30pm 3pm 3pm WILL SELF SUNDAY Marlborough between the High Street JOHN O’FARRELL 10.30 FRANCESCA SIMON Town Hall Town Hall Town Hall Library and George Lane. VANESSA LAFAYE 3pm 3pm SATURDAY White Horse Bookshop Ellis Theatre, Marlborough 10.30am KIT WHARTON 10.30am ANNIE GRAY College STORYTELLING St. Mary’s Church Hall BOOK ROADSHOW White Horse Bookshop Adderley, and The The 3pm 3pm Smoking Room, Bear White Horse Bookshop Katharine House Gallery Hotel 10.30am WILLIAM GOLDING’S 12 noon JANE AUSTEN Marlborough EDMUND GORDON LEGACY JS MONROE PERFORMANCE College By car or P Town Hall White Horse Bookshop White Horse Bookshop Marlborough College foot from the High 12 noon 4.30pm 12 noon 4.30pm Street, head west on Katharine NIKESH SHUKLA KEGGIE CAREW GRAEME MACRAE BURNET JOHN BOYNE the A4. Pass under a House St. Mary’s Church Hall White Horse Bookshop Gallery Town Hall Town Hall brick footbridge and 12 noon 4.30pm 1pm 4.30pm turn left into the Court. DANIEL SHAND KAMILA SHAMSIE POETRY IN THE PUB LALINE PAULL Church Hall is next White Horse Bookshop Town Hall The Bear Hotel, High St. Town Hall You will be met at the door to St Mary’s Church. 12 noon 4.30pm 1.30pm 6pm porch. You may park in The church is behind the TRANSLATION DUEL FIONA MADDOCKS HISCOX DEBUT AUTHORS CRAIG BROWN Court. The venues will be Town Hall. Access is from St. Mary’s Church Hall White Horse Bookshop White Horse Bookshop Town Hall signposted. the bottom of Kingsbury Street via Patten Alley. HOW TO BOOK In Person: White Horse Bookshop 01672 512071 The Bear Hotel Katharine House Gallery, From the church follow Online: www.marlboroughlitfest.org (Cash or cheque only) High Street, from the front The Parade, from the Town Hall, signs to the entrance of the Telephone: 01249 701628 (through Pound Arts Please note: All events will run for approximately one hour door of the Town Hall looking cross the pedestrian crossing hall up steps to the left of £1 charge for cards plus 50p postage) except the workshop, book roadshow & Poetry in the Pub. down the High Street, The opposite The Bear and walk down the church. Booking Terms & Conditions We do not exchange or refund tickets; this includes moving to an alternative performance. Tickets can be collected from Bear Hotel is immediately to The Parade. Katharine House is at the venue 30 minutes before the start of each performance. Children under the age of 12 must be accompanied by an adult for all family events. Details your left. the bottom of the road facing you. 34 in this brochure were correct at the time of going to print. The Festival reserves the right to make changes in the event of unforeseen circumstances.

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