Part of Words on Monday at Kings Place
Curated by The British Centre for Literary Translation at the University of East Anglia and The Society of Authors
WG Sebald's novels are almost unique among the narrative fiction written by non-Jewish Germans in the postwar period for their depiction of the lives of Jews affected by the Holocaust, but to what extent was Sebald's approach to the Holocaust itself symptomatic of a deeper and intransigent form of denial?
In this lecture Will Self will analyse Sebald's Holocaust writing in the light of the evolving historical understanding of the Holocaust and the part the German people took in it. Self will ask whether, when it comes to such crimes against humanity it is possible for their to be a literature either by, or about the perpetrators, and what purpose such writings might fulfil?
The prizes being awarded this evening are as follows:
The Premio Valle Inclán - translation from the Spanish
The Saif Ghobash-Banipal Prize - translation from the Arabic
The Schlegel-Tieck Prize - translation from the German
The Scott Moncrieff Prize - translation from the French
The Vondel Prize - translation from the Dutch and Flemish
The Bernard Shaw Prize - translation from the Swedish
The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Prize - translation from the Portuguese
The Rossica Translation Prize - translation from the Russian
Will Self photograph by Michael Wildsmith
Will Self was born in London in 1961. He graduated from Oxford University and began writing fiction, working as a cartoonist for the New Statesman and City Limits, a London listings magazine.
Nominated in 1993 as one of Granta magazine's 20 'Best of Young British Novelists 2', his fiction includes three short-story collections: The Quantity Theory of Insanity (1991), winner of the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, Grey Area (1994), and Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys (1998). Cock and Bull (1992) consists of two novellas, and he is also the author of four novels: My Idea of Fun (1993), Great Apes (1997), How the Dead Live (2000) and Dorian (2002), a retelling of Oscar Wilde's classic tale set in late 20th-century Britain.
His non-fiction includes Perfidious Man (2000), described by his publisher as 'an examination of modern masculinity' with photographs by David Gamble, and Sore Sites (2000), a collection of writings about architecture. In addition, he has published two collections of journalism, Junk Mail (1995), and Feeding Frenzy (2001), which includes writing from the period 1995-2000. In 2002 he took part in a 'reality art' project in a one-bedroom flat on the 20th floor of a tower block in Liverpool, writing a short piece of fiction while being watched by members of the public. The event was sponsored by Liverpool Housing Action Trust to mark the passing of high-rise housing in the city. His most recent novel is The Butt (2008), winner of the 2008 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize.
A regular broadcaster on television and radio and contributor to and numerous newspapers and magazines, Will Self lives in London with his partner and three children. A book of non-fiction, Psychogeography, was published in 2007, and a selected short stories, The Undivided Self, in 2008
Choose where you would like to sit. Use our seating plan to choose your price and seat.
Date: Monday 11 January
Time: 19:00
Venue: Hall One
Please note that online booking closes 90 minutes prior to the start of the performance.
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