Please see below for:

• A reminder of next Monday’s RSL event with Robert Skidelsky
• Booking details for our joint event with the Antiquarian Book Fair this week
• Information about our joint event with the British Library on 9 June
• Information about RSL’s Tagore Lecture
• Booking details for our July event with Christopher Ricks
• News of other events and competitions that might be of interest

Monday 7 June, 7pm
Chaired by Elaine Feinstein

The Skidelsky Russian Lecture

The Bolshevik Revolution produced a mass exodus of Russia’s aristocracy and educated bourgeoisie. In the years following 1917 many of Russia’s most talented writers, artists, composers, scientists, professionals, managers and entrepreneurs went into exile, depriving the Soviet Union of a huge and irreplaceable cultural resource. The roll-call of writers alone includes such names as Nabokov, Sinyavsky and Solzhenitsyn. After the fall of communism some of these exiles and their descendants started to reconnect with their motherland. Lord Skidelsky is the biographer of J.M. Keynes, and Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick. Inaugurating a series of annual Russian lectures by different speakers that he is generously sponsoring, he traces his own reconnection with Russia, against the background of a turbulent, murderous history. The prerevolutionary story of his two families, the Skidelskys and the Sapelkins, is a book he intends to write – explaining how his birth in Harbin, Manchuria, in 1939, was the outcome of a chance shake of the historical dice.

This event is free for Fellows and Members of the Royal Society of Literature. There is a limited number of tickets for members of the public at all RSL events, available on the door, from 6pm, on a first-come-first-served basis. We suggest a contribution of £7 (£5 concessions).

The talk will be held in the Kenneth Clark Lecture Theatre, Courtauld Institute, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 1LA

For further information please visit our website www.rslit.org, or call us on 020 7845 4676.

Thursday 3 June 2 - 4pm

The Fair will host a Charity Preview on Thursday 3 June from 2 - 4pm, before the official fair opening, in aid of the Royal Society of Literature.

Lord Bragg, who will open the fair during the Preview, is widely recognised as both author and broadcaster, particularly well known for the late, much lamented, South Bank Show. He is a Fellow and supporter of the Royal Society of Literature. Guests will be offered a glass of wine, and the opportunity to have first look at the books on offer.

The London International Antiquarian Book Fair, Olympia, attracts over 3,500 visitors every year.  They enjoy an unparalleled choice of highest quality collectors’ items ranging from modern first editions to incunabula, from plate books to maps and atlases, from pamphlets to poetry, from photography to
illustrations. While some books are expensive, some are not. Prices start from as little as £10. Whether your taste is Adam Smith or Adam and Eve, Dickens or Diderot, Potter or Proust, Speed or Schedel, Fleming or Foujita, there is likely to be something that appeals to you.

Charity Preview tickets are £10 for Fellows and Members of the RSL (£25 full price).

To book a ticket, ring 0207 845 4677 or email rachel@rslit.org.  Tickets are also available on the door.  Please show your RSL card to receive the discounted ticket rate.

Venue: The Olympia Exhibition Centre – Olympia Two, Hammersmith Road, London W14

Wednesday 9 June  6.30 – 8.30pm

In a digital age, does it matter whether British literary manuscripts remain in this country or not? Should more be done to keep the papers of writers in their home region? How proactive should libraries be in acquiring the papers of living writers? What do writers look for in deciding where to sell their archives? The Royal Society of Literature and the UK Literary Heritage Working Group are hosting a public event at the British Library on Wednesday 9th June to tackle the most pressing questions that affect and influence contemporary writers when they donate or sell their literary archives to collecting institutions in the UK and beyond. The event will be chaired by biographer, novelist, critic, broadcaster, and Vice-President of the RSL, Victoria Glendinning, with speakers to include former Poet Laureat, Andrew Motion FRSL; critic and literary biographer, Andrew Lycett FRSL; and author, playwright and screenwriter, Ronald Harwood FRSL. They will be joined by Joan Winterkorn, a director of Quaritch Rare Books and Manuscripts, who leads the company’s valuation and related work on archives and manuscript collections. The panel will debate issues raised by the main speakers and questions will be invited from the audience.

We are grateful to the Royal Literary Fund for sponsoring this discussion.

The event is free of charge, but booking is essential. Please visit www.bl.uk for details.

Venue: British Library, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB

Monday 21 June 7pm

The Tagore Lecture

Chaired by Deborah Moggach

Do British writers of Asian descent consider their cultural and literary heritage to be principally British, or Asian? To what extent do they feel obliged to represent their Asian origins in their work? Imtiaz Dharker, poet, artist and documentary film-maker, grew up in a Lahori household in Glasgow, and describes herself as a Scottish Muslim Calvinist. Her fourth volume of poetry, Leaving Fingerprints, was published in September. Daljit Nagra’s parents came to the UK from the Indian Punjab, and he was brought up near Heathrow. The title poem in his debut collection, Look We Have Coming to Dover!, won the Forward Poetry Prize for Best Single Poem. Sathnam Sanghera was born to Punjabi parents in the West Midlands. His first book, The Boy with the Topknot: a Memoir of Love, Secrets and Lies in Wolverhampton, was shortlisted for both the Costa Biography Prize and the PEN/Ackerley Prize, and was 2009 Mind Book of the Year.  The three writers intersperse their discussion with readings from their work.

We are grateful to the Gavron Charitable Trust for sponsoring this meeting.

This event is free for Fellows and Members of the Royal Society of Literature. There is a limited number of tickets for members of the public at all RSL events, available on the door, from 6pm, on a first-come-first-served basis. We suggest a contribution of £7 (£5 concessions).

The talk will be held in the Kenneth Clark Lecture Theatre, Courtauld Institute, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 1LA

For further information please visit our website www.rslit.org, or call us on 020 7845 4676.

Monday 12 July 7pm

Chaired by Anne Chisholm

Christopher Ricks, whose interests range from Bob Dylan to Victorian Poetry, was once described by W.H. Auden as ‘the kind of critic every poet dreams of finding’. Previously Professor of Poetry at Oxford, now Professor of Humanities at Boston University, he talks about his new book, True Friendship, in which he explores relations between poets, and the effects these bonds have had on their work. Specifically, he considers Geoffrey Hill, Anthony Hecht and Robert Lowell, and their relationship with the poetry of Eliot and Pound.
Seats must be booked in advance (email rachel@rslit.org or ring 020 7845 4676). We suggest a contribution of £5 from RSL Fellows and members, £7.50 from members of the public, to be taken on the door.
Venue: the Old Anatomy Theatre, King's College.  RSL staff will meet you in the King's reception area to provide directions.

For further information please visit our website www.rslit.org, or call us on 020 7845 4676.

As an accompaniment to the Skidelsky and Tagore lectures this month, the Philharmonia Orchestra would like to offer you the best available tickets for £10 for three concerts of Russian music at Southbank Centre, conducted by leading Russian maestro Yuri Temirkanov. Temirkanov explores the works of Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky on 24 June with pianist Denis Matsuev, 27 June with violinist Sayaka Shoji and 29 June with pianist Boris Berezovsky. Programmes include Prokofiev’s Piano Concertos Nos 2 and 3 and Violin Concerto, and Tchaikovsky’s Symphonies Nos 4, 5 and 6 (the Pathétique), as well as excerpts from Eugene Onegin and the Cinderella Suite.
 
To book the best available tickets for £10, call 0800 652 6717 and quote ‘Best for £10’.

Find out more at www.philharmonia.co.uk/concerts/series/prokofievandtchaikovsky

This competition is now open for entries. It has three categories, Poetry, Fiction and Artwork. Winners of each category receive £500 prize money.  Winners and finalists are published in the Aesthetica Creative Works Annual.
The deadline for submissions is the 31st August 2010.

Submission guidelines are online at http://www.aestheticamagazine.com/submission_guide.htm

This poetry competition was founded by Ted Hughes in 1980.  The competition will be judged by Britain’s Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, with Elaine Feinstein and Sudeep Sen.  Previous winners include former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, Don Paterson and Siân Hughes.

The deadline for submissions is the 16 August 2010.

Enter online at www.arvonfoundation.org