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Laurie Maguire 707
Helen of Troy:
From Homer to Hollywood
10am / Festival Room 1, Christ Church / £7.50
This engaging and original new book takes readers
on an epic voyage into the literary representation
of a woman who has wielded a great influence on
Western cultural consciousness for more than three
millennia. Laurie Maguire, Professor of English at
Oxford University, calls on a wide and diverse variety
of literary sources to explore the ways in which
Helen’s story has been told and retold from the
ancient world to the modern day.
Sponsored by Blackwell
Adam Zamoyski 705
Poland: A History
12pm / McKenna Room, Christ Church / £7.50
Since the publication in 1987 of Adam Zamoyski’s
classic The Polish Way: A Thousand-Year History
of the Poles and their Culture, Poland’s situation
has changed dramatically. After the turmoil of the
19th and 20th centuries, Poland today is one of the
most vigorous nations of contemporary Europe. In
his revised and updated edition, Zamoyski brings
the story right up to date, addressing the downfall
of communism and Poland’s integration into the
European Union.
Sponsored by Blackwell
SATURDAY APRIL 2009
Sadie Jones 711
The Outcast
12pm / Festival Room 2, Christ Church / £7.50
Sadie Jones’s debut novel made a major splash in
2008, after being shortlisted for the Orange prize
and picked for Richard & Judy’s summer book club.
A devastating portrait of small-town hypocrisy set
in leafy Surrey, the book opens in 1957, with young
Lewis Aldridge travelling back to his home having
been released from jail. A decade earlier, his father’s
homecoming had cast a quite different shadow. As
the novel moves through trauma and its aftermath,
we see Lewis change from a quiet, happy boy, into
a young man whose loneliness and alienation cast
a dramatic shadow over a whole community.
Sponsored by Felicity Bryan
Literary Agency
I've never been to any Festival of any
kind where everyone seems so happy -
at breakfast in Hall the chatter is endless
and the expectation of another day's
entertainment and intellectual challenge
is almost palpable. The organisation is
impeccable: crowds of people walk from one
venue to another, and nothing seems to start
late. And Oxford is the perfect background.
Frank Whitford
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