Literature & Spoken Word

'We do not usually associate wisdom with beginners, but here is a new writer endowed with the gift of ancient storytellers. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie knows what is at stake, and what to do about it...

Geoff Dyer returns to fiction for the first time in 11 years, exploring ideas around travel, love and work in his novel Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi.

Alain de Botton's The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work takes an illuminating view of the modern workplace, and he shares his insights at this event.

With David Byrne headlining Ether 09, writer, critic and music fan Sukhdev Sandhu discusses the musical and aesthetic legacy of the post-punk years.

Lesbian and gay people come from all over the world to live in London. What draws them here? What do they find when they arrive and what are they leaving behind?

Heiner Goebbels discusses the creation of Songs of Wars I Have Seen and Sampler Suite from Surrogate Cities ahead of the performance of this haunting work in Queen Elizabeth Hall at 7.30pm.
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We live in a culture which prizes speed of communication, travel and thought. Carl Honore, author of In Praise of Slow, thinks there is an alternative.

As Andrew Motion's time as Poet Laureate draws to a close, he reflects on the role, its opportunities and the profile of poetry today.

Exactly 100 days since his inauguration, Ziauddin Sardar, Lionel Shriver, Amina Adewusi and Shirley Thompson take the pulse of the Obama presidency.