Booker Prize nominated writer Lloyd Jones in Q&A event at Univerity of Liverpool’s Victoria Gallery & Museum

by Laura Davis, Liverpool Daily Post , Oct 12 2010

BOOKER Prize nominee Lloyd Jones is taking part in an “in conversation with” event at the University of Liverpool tomorrow.

The New Zealand-based author of Mister Pip will be taking questions on all aspects of his writing at the Victoria Gallery & Museum, from 7.30-9pm.

The event coincides with a project providing 1,000 first year students with a copy of the book, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2007.
It is open to the public and free of charge to attend.

Jones says: “These days, books have a shorter than ever shelf life.
“The publishing industry tends to emphasise and value the new. Whereas this project keeps a few lucky titles in circulation and, more importantly, in the loop of conversation.
“I am very pleased that Mister Pip is one of them.”

Set on the small copper mining island of Bougainville, Jones’s novel is shaped by the plot of Charles Dickens’s book, Great Expectations.
Told from the point of view of Matilda, a teenager, it centres on her experiences of being taught by Mr Watt, the only white man left on the island during the civil war of the 1990s.

The scheme is organised by the university’s School of Arts and School of English in collaboration with The Reader Organisation and The Booker Prize Foundation. This year’s Man Booker winner will be announced tonight at a dinner to be held at London’s Guildhall.