Literary Leicester events to tackle race culture and class headon
October 2017 marks the 30th anniversary of Black History Month in the UK - a month dedicated to recognising and celebrating black history, arts and culture.
A number of free public events taking place the following month at Literary Leicester will continue to shine a light on Black and Asian literature, and the real-life experiences that have shaped the works of these influential authors.
On 17 November, Shrabani Basu’s event at Literary Leicester will be a multi-faceted and unique evening experience. Basu will discuss her work Victoria and Abdul, The True Story of the Queen’s Closest Confidant, which has recently been turned into a feature film starring Judi Dench by Leicester-born director Stephen Frears.
Taking place at Leicester’s Phoenix cinema from 6.00pm, there will be an initial talk from Basu about her book and the writing experience.The film adaptation of her book, Victoria and Abdul, will then be screened in the Phoenix cinema, followed by a Q&A.
On 18 November, historian and broadcaster David Olusoga will discuss his multi-award winning book Black and British: A Forgotten History in conversation with Dr Corinne Fowler.
Another event taking place on 18 November from 4.00 pm to 5.00 pm in the Attenborough Film Theatre is ‘Green Unpleasant Land: Rural Racism in Contemporary Britain’. This will be followed by a guest appearance from acclaimed author of seven novels Kamila Shamsie, who will continue the theme of world fiction in the Peter Williams Lecture Theatre from 5.30 pm to 6.30 pm.
Dr Corinne Fowler, Associate Professor of Postcolonial Literature at the University of Leicester School of Arts, said: “‘Literary Leicester is so good because it represents talent from the whole population and comes at topics from entirely new angles. We’ll be discussing (with David Olusoga) Britain’s forgotten black histories, rural racism and the history behind Victoria and Abdul, which involves acts of historical vandalism by the royal family.”