Alison Flood books/2018/feb/22/lionel-shriver-says-politically-correct-censorship-is-damaging-fiction THANK YOU Lionel Shriver! What wisdom! And thank you Alison Flood and the Guardian for publishing this feature In 2016 Claret Press published my novel Brushstrokes in Time which is mostly set in China. It was turned into an audio
Dwina Gibb and I were on Radio Oxford talking Poems in an Exhibition. Click on the link to hear Dwina read My Songbird has Flown: Dwina Gibb - My Songbird Has Flown Dwina and I on Radio Oxford: The launch
Qu Leilei is a founder of the Stars Art Movement. When he told me his story it inspired me to write Brushstrokes in Time. Recording the trial of democracy leader Wei Jingsheng (1979) catapulted his life into nightmare. (again) He
Oxfordfolio are sending ‘Poems in an Exhibition’ to the printers today. Hatred of the ‘other’ has been rearing its ugly head everywhere. ‘Poems in an Exhibition’ has accidentally become a celebration of diversity. The backgrounds of the poets and artists
Coming Soon to the Ashmolean. Qu Leilei: A Chinese Artist in Britain (7 Nov 2017 to 15 Apr 2018.) This exhibition and the accompanying book should establish his reputation as a great artist . Reviewing Everyone’s Life is an Epic in
Because of the rise in empire nostalgia, knowing the truth about the brutality of empire is important. Our schools don’t teach empire and most Brits know little and what they do know is coloured by ideas of benevolent patriarchy. In
India's lost emperor Ashoka set about governing India by moral force alone! He renounced violence including the death penalty and this was Before Christ ! Ashoka turned Buddhism from a minor sect into a world religion but his name was cleansed
I can’t believe that the young people in this film including my grand-daughter Amber will be at university next month. Polly Biswas Gladwin, Victor Glynn and I organised these filmed workshops of Joe and Zara –Oxford’s own Romeo and Juliet .
The death was announced of Brian Aldiss in this way ‘Author of British Science Fiction classics Non-stop, Hothouse and Greybeard, Aldiss’s writing spanned genres and generations, bridging the gap between classic ‘science fiction’ and contemporary literature with his Helliconia Trilogy…’ When I sent him to
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05b5fdg It’s a welcome change for the BBC to focus on the partition of India. For too long the only history we get is the Tudors, WW1 and WW2. Almost ignored are the Industrial Revolution and the Empire which