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13 March 2010, 6.30-7.30pm
Wisewords Bookfest

MAGGIE GEE and YASMIN ALIBHAI-BROWN discuss their lives & latest autobiographical books.

Maggie Gee has published many novels to great acclaim including THE WHITE FAMILY short listed for the Orange and IMPAC prizes. Her latest book MY ANIMAL LIFE (Telegram Books) is a wise and witty memoir telling the true story of becoming an adult in the 1960s and living through dramatic changes in attitudes towards race, class and gender in the second half of the twentieth century. Her latest novel MY DRIVER (Telegram Books) is also just published in paperback.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown came to this country in 1972 from Uganda. She is a journalist, broadcaster and author of several books and currently a regular columnist on The Independent and London’s Evening Standard. In 2001 she was awarded an MBE but returned the honour in 2003 in protest against the war in Iraq. Yasmin’s latest book THE SETTLERS COOKBOOK (Portobello Books) is an enchanting memoir with recipes.

15 March 2010, 7.00pm
Royal Society of Literature

Memory and Imagination
William Fiennes, Maggie Gee and Candia McWilliam
Chaired by Piers Plowright

The TLS Discussion

What happened when Proust’s narrator dipped the madeleine in his tea? How does memory work and when does imagination take over? If poetry is ‘emotion recollected in tranquillity’, is recollection then a literary technique - and how far is it possible, or necessary, for memoirs to tell the truth? William Fiennes is the author of The Music Room, a childhood memoir that examines in parallel, through the story of his epileptic brother, the working of the human mind. Maggie Gee’s new memoir, My Animal Life, weaves her own history into the context of the dramatic social changes of the second half of the twentieth century. And Candia McWilliam has written a memoir to be published later this year, What to Look for in Winter, about the experience of going blind. They discuss the methods, challenges and rewards of writing about their own lives.

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

18 March 2010, 20.00
Essex Book Festival
Tickets: £6.50/4.50. Book Now!
Billericay Library

The acclaimed writer of many books including The Ice People and The White Family discusses ‘writing about my life: how do you tell the truth in fiction and autobiography?' Maggie's latest books are My Driver and My Animal Life.

In partnership with the Billericay Literary Society.