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5 SUNDAY
APRIL 2009
5
Ian McEwan
interviewed by Peter Kemp
The Sunday Times Award for
Literary Excellence
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10am / Garden Marquee, Christ Church / £8.00
Ian McEwan made an immediate impression on
the literary world with his striking debut collection
of short stories, First Love, Last Rites (1975).
Since then he has gone on to establish himself
as arguably Britain’s greatest living novelist. Taut
narrative, intensely believable characters and acute
psychological, emotional and social analysis have
compellingly combined with crisp prose and an
outstanding ability to conjure up place and period
in masterpieces such as Atonement (2001) and
Saturday (2005). In accepting The Sunday Times Award
for Literary Excellence today, he joins an impressive
line-up of previous recipients including Margaret
Atwood, Ted Hughes, Tom Stoppard, Muriel Spark
and Seamus Heaney. Ian McEwan is interviewed by
Peter Kemp, Fiction Editor of The Sunday Times.
Sir Tom Stoppard receiving the 2008 Sunday Times
Award for Literary Excellence
Choral Matins with
the Archbishop of York
Diana Quick 831
A Tug Upon the Thread
10am / McKenna Room, Christ Church / £7.50
One of the country’s finest actors, Diana Quick always
thought she knew where she came from. But when
her beloved father died, she discovered a whole
world of secrets that she had known nothing about.
Not only was her father Catholic, she realised, but
his childhood in India had been far from idyllic
and he had been driven away from his own father.
Rooting around in the archives, Quick then discovered
a whole branch of her family that she had no idea
existed. This is her story of a search for a past, and
for an understanding of exile and denial.
Martin Brasier
and Emma Darwin
Charles Darwin
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10am / Festival Room 2, Christ Church / £7.50
Martin Brasier, author of Darwin’s Lost World: The Hidden
History of Life on Earth, will talk about Darwin with
Emma Darwin, author of A Secret Alchemy and a
great-great-granddaughter of Charles Darwin and his
wife Emma Wedgwood, in the bi-centenary year of
Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication
of his seminal work, On the Origin of Species.
Brasier’s engaging book is an account of the investigation
by palaeontologists into whether the Cambrian explosion
was really an outburst of life or only of fossils.
Emma Darwin’s new novel is set during the War of the
Roses, and retells the famous story of the Princess in
the Tower.
Sponsored by Cox & Kings
SUNDAY APRIL 2009
10.00 am / Cathedral, Christ Church
The preacher at this special service for Palm
Sunday is the Archbishop of York, the Most
Revd and Rt Hon Dr John Sentamu. The service
will be sung by the Cathedral Choir, and lasts
about one hour.
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