Philip Pullman heads a starry night of events with a reading from Kurt Vonnegut's impassioned defence of the right to read
Reading rights … Philip Pullman. Photograph: Frank Baron for the Guardian
Philip Pullman will read from Kurt Vonnegut's letter to the school head who burned copies of Slaughterhouse-Five – in which the late American novelist writes of how "books are sacred to free men for very good reasons" – in an event marking World Book Night this evening.
Pullman is set to appear alongside authors including Andrew Motion, David Nicholls and Caitlin Moran at a celebration of the "enduring power of correspondence" at London's Southbank Centre tonight. Inspired by the letter collections To the Letter by Simon Garfield and Letters of Note by Shaun Usher, the Letters Live event will see a series of well-known names reading extracts from letters from throughout history. It is the culmination of World Book Night, the now annual event at which 250,000 copies of 20 specially chosen books – this year ranging from The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne to Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin – are given away by volunteers and institutions to help spread the love of reading.
The London event will see former poet laureate Motion reading from Ted Hughes's letter to his and Sylvia Plath's then 24-year-old son Nicholas – 23 years after Plath's death – advising the man who would go on to commit suicide himself in 2009 to, "as Buddha says: live like a mighty river. And as the old Greeks said: live as though all your ancestors were living again through you."
Pullman will read from Vonnegut's letter, written in 1973 after 32 copies of Slaughterhouse-Five were burned by a head teacher in North Dakota because of the novel's "obscene language". "The news from Drake indicates to me that books and writers are very unreal to you people. I am writing this letter to let you know how real I am," wrote Vonnegut.
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Pullman is set to appear alongside authors including Andrew Motion, David Nicholls and Caitlin Moran at a celebration of the "enduring power of correspondence" at London's Southbank Centre tonight. Inspired by the letter collections To the Letter by Simon Garfield and Letters of Note by Shaun Usher, the Letters Live event will see a series of well-known names reading extracts from letters from throughout history. It is the culmination of World Book Night, the now annual event at which 250,000 copies of 20 specially chosen books – this year ranging from The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne to Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin – are given away by volunteers and institutions to help spread the love of reading.
The London event will see former poet laureate Motion reading from Ted Hughes's letter to his and Sylvia Plath's then 24-year-old son Nicholas – 23 years after Plath's death – advising the man who would go on to commit suicide himself in 2009 to, "as Buddha says: live like a mighty river. And as the old Greeks said: live as though all your ancestors were living again through you."
Pullman will read from Vonnegut's letter, written in 1973 after 32 copies of Slaughterhouse-Five were burned by a head teacher in North Dakota because of the novel's "obscene language". "The news from Drake indicates to me that books and writers are very unreal to you people. I am writing this letter to let you know how real I am," wrote Vonnegut.
More
See also - The top 10 writers to see live
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