Sebastian Faulks
Festival of Ideas
Friday 14 September 2018 1 - 2pm
The Benjamin West Lecture Theatre, Burlington Gardens, Royal Academy of Arts
£16, £10 concessions
Twenty-five years after the publication of ‘Birdsong’, in the month that his latest novel ‘Paris Echo’ is published, bestselling author Sebastian Faulks examines how the shadow of war has shaped his work.
Birdsong, a love story set against the backdrop of the First World War, is one of the country’s best-loved novels and has sold more than three million copies. Faulks has just published his 14th novel, Paris Echo, which is set in present-day Paris and examines the city’s troubled past under the Nazis in the 1940s and its relationship with its former colonies.
Faulks talks to journalist and broadcaster Suzi Feay about why he thinks Birdsong is such an enduring success, how the memory of war has influenced his novels and the challenges of opting for the solitary life of the novelist.
Faulks' novels include the Sunday Times number one bestseller A Week in December, as well as Where My Heart Used to Beat, A Possible Life, Human Traces, On Green Dolphin Street and Charlotte Gray, which was made into a film with Cate Blanchett in the title role. In 2011 he wrote and presented the four-part television series Faulks on Fiction for BBC Two. He has edited two anthologies of war writing and has written two collections of parodies, Pistache and Pistache Returns.
Paris Echo is published 6 September 2018.
This event will be followed by a Q&A.
Book signing
Sebastian Faulks will be signing books in the Burlington Gardens Wohl Entrance Hall, outside Pace Gallery, from 2–2.45pm on the day of the event, Friday 14 September. Free, no need to book.
DJ performance: Rachael Plays Disco
Free
Every Friday and Saturday evening throughout our Festival of Ideas we’ve invited some of our favourite DJs to takeover the Royal Academy, performing eclectic sets of dance, house, disco and electronica in Burlington Gardens' Wohl Entrance Hall.
Resident DJ at Rye Wax in Peckham – and lover of Italo and Eurodisco – Rachael Plays Disco is a regular at London club nights, performing an exciting mix of disco, funk and soul.