Please note this is a live streaming of the event in Hall One.

Simon Schama’s Belonging is alive with energy, character and colour. Written in his inimitable style, this is a magnificent cultural history. It spans centuries and continents, from the Jews’ expulsion from Spain in 1492 to the brink of the 20th century, telling the stories not just of rabbis and philosophers, but of a poetess in the ghetto of Venice, a boxer in Georgian England, a general in Ming China and an opera composer in 19th Germany. The story unfolds in Kerala and Mantua, the starlit hills of Galilee, the rivers of Colombia, the kitchens of Istanbul, the taverns of Ukraine and the mining camps of California.

Simon Schama is Professor of History and Art History at Columbia University. and the prize-winning author of 18 books, which have been translated into numerous languages. They include The Embarrassment of Riches, Citizens, Landscape and Memory and The Story of the Jews. He is a contributing editor at the FT and his award-winning television work as writer and presenter for the BBC includes the 15-part A History of Britain and the Emmy-winning Power of Art.

Elif Shafak is an award winning novelist and the most widely read female writer in Turkey. She is also a political commentator and broadcaster. Shafak writes in both Turkish and English and has published 15 books, ten of which are novels, including The Bastard of Istanbul, The Forty Rules of Love and Three Daughters of Eve. Her books have been published in 48 languages; she regularly contributes to major newspapers and periodicals around the world; and was a 2017 judge of the Man Booker International Prize.