Thursday, 16 May 2019 at 7:00 pm – Thursday, 16 May 2019 at 9:00 pm
The Longer Read with Alan Hollinghurst
Hosted by The Manchester Writing School at Manchester Met
Date: Thursday 16th May 2019
Time: Doors 6.30pm. Event runs from 7pm-9pm including book signing.
Location: Anthony Burgess Foundation
Tickets: Free - Available on Eventbrite
What does it take to be a successful novelist? Just what does it mean to lead a life in writing?
The Longer Read takes a career-wide look at the lives of authors, unpicking the techniques and habits that writers use in their everyday work. These in-conversation events are brought to you by the Manchester Writing School and the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, with a signing and bookstall by Blackwell’s Bookshop. Book your ticket here.
Alan Hollinghurst is a Gloucestershire novelist, poet and short story writer with numerous awards to his name, including the Somerset Maugham Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and, in 2004, the Man Booker Prize. He initially set out to be a short story writer, but quickly found his feet as with longer-form fiction.
His first novel was The Swimming-Pool Library in 1988, which paints a picture of London gay aristocratic life. His 2004 novel The Line of Beauty won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction and was adapted for BBC Television.
His sixth and latest novel The Sparsholt Affair explores intimate relationships across three generations and was described by The Guardian as “the novel that other novelists were all talking about this year”.
“Hollinghurst is a master storyteller … thrilling in the rather awful way that the best Victorian novels are, so that one finds oneself galloping somewhat shamefacedly through the pages in order to discover what happens next.” (John Banville)
The Manchester Writing School's Andrew McMillan is the series’ curator. He is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. Andrew McMillan was born in South Yorkshire in 1988; his debut collection physical was the first ever poetry collection to win The Guardian First Book Award. His second collection, playtime, is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation for Autumn 2018.
The writers and researchers at Manchester Met, based in the Manchester Writing School, are always exploring two distinct paths within their work; how creative writing might serve as a mode of enquiry into the world and how such research might be disseminated outside of the academy in order for it to have the greatest impact. Our Writers at Manchester Met series allows us to interrogate the very best contemporary writing and continue to explore new ways in which it might reach wider audiences.
Manchester Metropolitan University is committed to disability equality. If you have any access requirements, please let us know via 0161 247 6740 or email us at lucy.simpson@mmu.ac.uk before you arrive to help us to make sure that your visit to the event is as enjoyable as possible.