Box Office 0870 343 1001 www.sundaytimes ... - Blackwell's

4 SATURDAY
APRIL 2009
Janet Soskice 729
Sisters of Sinai:
How Two Lady Adventurers
Found the Hidden Gospels
6pm / Festival Room 2, Christ Church / £7.50
In 1892, identical twins Agnes and Margaret Smith
made one of the most important scriptural finds of
modern times. Combing the library of St. Catherine’s
monastery at Mount Sinai, they found a palimpsest:
beneath a life of female saints, they detected what
remains to this day among the earliest known copies
of the Gospels, written in ancient Syriac, the language
of Jesus. In her enthralling book, Janet Soskice
takes us on a journey in search of these Victorian
adventurers and their remarkable discovery.
Sponsored by Cox & Kings
Richard Askwith,
730
Roy Hattersley and Tom Oliver
The Oxford Times Debate. Does
Rural England Have a Future
6pm / Blue Boar Marquee, Christ Church / £7.50
What is the future of rural England How serious
is the threat posed by the closure of post offices,
pubs and schools and the concreting over of the
countryside for development Are those who object
to these threats merely nostalgic Little Englanders
who should adapt to progress and an ever-changing
landscape This issue will be discussed by the
politician, author and journalist Roy Hattersley, Tom
Oliver, who is Head of Rural Policy for the Campaign
for Rural England (CPRE), and Richard Askwith,
journalist and author of The Lost Village.
Ben Okri
753
interviewed by Elleke Boehmer
Tales of Freedom
6pm / Newman Rooms, St Aldates / £7.50
As one of Britain’s foremost poets, Ben Okri is rightly
acclaimed for his use of language. A Booker Prize-winning
novelist, he brings both poetry and story together in a
fascinating new form, using writing and image pared
down to their essentials.
Tales of Freedom allows us to discover many colourful
characters, including Pinprop, the slave who holds the
keys to the universe in his quirky hands, and a black
Russian helping to film a new version of Eugene Onegin.
This stimulating book offers a haunting necklace
of images that flash and sparkle as the light shines
on them.
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