PHILIP HENSHER, TAHMIMA ANAM - The Bangladeshi Novel

MONDAY 21 MAY, 7PM

The Tagore Memorial Meeting

Venue: Kenneth Clark Lecture Theatre, The Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 1LA

PHILIP HENSHER, TAHMIMA ANAM

The Bangladeshi Novel

CHAIRED BY SARA WHEELER

How does a novelist set about exploring a culture that is not his own? Or writing about her own culture from a different country? And what are the advantages and challenges of exploring history through a domestic prism? In Scenes from Early Life, published in April, prize-winning novelist Philip Hensher combines biography, memoir, fiction and history to tell the story of the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War through the eyes of his partner, Zaved. Both Tahmima Anam’s novels, A Golden Age (2007, winner of the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize for Best First Book) and its sequel, The Good Muslim, explore the same war, which took place five years before her birth. In a conversation chaired by travel writer Sara Wheeler, who has visited and written about Bangladesh, they discuss their relationships with this young country, and ask what makes the Bangladeshi novel distinct.

Tickets are £5, to be paid on the door. Please email molly@rslit.org or call 0207 845 4677 to reserve.

We are grateful to the Robert Gavron Charitable Trust for sponsoring this event.

Philip Hensher photo above - The Guardian