On Language and Creativity

Bernardine Evaristo won the Booker Prize 2019 with her eighth book, Girl, Woman, Other, the first black woman and black British person to win it. It was a #1 Sunday Times bestseller for five weeks and spent 44 weeks in the Top 10. It has sold over a million copies and there are now over 60 translations of her books in over forty languages. Her memoir, Manifesto: On Never Giving Up (2021) was published in 2021, and Look Again: Feminism (2021) was published as part of Tate Britain’s major rehang. She has initiated many arts inclusion projects and is currently the curator of Black Britain: Writing Back for Penguin, re-publishing books from the past. She is Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London, an Honorary Fellow of St. Anne’s College, University of Oxford and President of the Royal Society of Literature.

Hannah Lowe is a poet, memoirist and critic. She was named a Poetry Book Society Next Generation Poet in 2014 and won a Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors in 2020. Her first poetry collection, Chick (2013), won the Michael Murphy Poetry Prize. Her latest, The Kids, a PBS Choice for Autumn 2021, was shortlisted for the 2022 TS Eliot Prize, and won the 2021 Costa Book of the Year. She is a Reader in Creative Writing at Brunel University London.

Claire Lynch is Professor of English and Irish Literature at Brunel University London. She is the author of three books including Small: On Motherhoods published in 2021. Claire was a runner-up in the Spread the Word Life Writing Prize and shortlisted in the Penguin Random House Write Now programme. Alongside numerous academic articles and book chapters, her work has been published in The Washington Post and broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service.

Dalit Nagra is Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London, Chair of the Royal Society of Literature, Council of Society of Authors, a PBS New Generation Poet, and presenter of the weekly Poetry Extra on Radio 4 Extra. Daljit Nagra, MBE, has published four poetry collections, all with Faber & Faber, which have won the Forward Prize for Best Individual Poem and Best First Book, the South Bank Show Decibel Award and the Cholmondeley Award, and been shortlisted for the Costa Prize and twice for the TS Eliot Prize.

This event is part of the Being Human Festival, the UK's national festival of the humanities, taking place 9-18 November 2023. Led by the School of Advanced Study, University of London, with generous support from Research England, in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy. For further information please see beinghumanfestival.org