Events/Tickets
Forthcoming events:
Fri 22 Nov 2019 - Lessing in the Library
This free event will focus on the genesis of Lessing's most famous work, The Golden Notebook. First published in 1962, this book has been both hailed as a "radical exploration of communism, female liberation, motherhood and mental breakdown" and reviled as "castrating" [source: The Guardian, Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook 50 Years On].
UEA academic Dr Nonia Williams and Archivist Justine Mann will introduce archival material relating to the novel, shedding light on Lessing's creative process and the often thin line between fact and fiction in her work. There will also be a contemporary response from UEA undergraduate Georgina Rowley who will present extracts from her own writing, inspired by study of The Golden Notebook.
This free event is offered by UEA as part of the Lessing centenary celebrations. It is an unusual opportunity to share in original archival materials bequeathed by the Nobel laureate to the University. No prior knowledge of Lessing is required: both those familiar with her work and those new to it are very welcome.
Venue: Norwich Millennium Library
Time: 19:00-21:00
FREE. Registration required: https://store.uea.ac.uk/product-catalogue/faculty-of-arts-and-humanities/doris-lessing-100-lessing-in-the-library/doris-lessing-100-lessing-in-the-library
[Date tbc] - Memoirs of a Survivor - Screening
UEA is pleased to present a rare screening of the 1981 dystopian classic at Cinema City in Norwich, with an introduction by UEA lecturer Iain Robinson.
The film will be preceded by footage from the East Anglian Film Archive, of Rouen Road being transformed into a post-apocalyptic landscape for the making of the movie.
Date: TBC
Time: 19:00-21:30
Venue: Cinema City, St Andrew's Street, Norwich
Cost: £3
Set in Britain at an unspecified point in the near-future, Memoirs of a Survivortells the story of 'D', a housewife trying to carry on after a cataclysmic war that has left society in a state of collapse. Rubbish is piled high in the streets among near-derelict buildings covered with graffiti; the electricity supply is variable, and water is now collected from a van. 'D' spends her time examining her relations with authority, with the marauding gangs of brutalised children who roam the streets, and with Emily, the traumatised, orphaned teenager who is delivered into her care.
The movie stars Julie Christie as 'D', Christopher Guard and Leonie Mellinger, with a cameo role from Nigel Hawthorne. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival in 1981.
The original Lessing novel, The Memoirs of a Survivor, was first published in 1974.
Iain Robinson is a lecturer in the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing at UEA. He convenes the module Imaginary Endings: British Fiction and the Apocalypse.
Please note this film has an 18 certificate.
For past events, including our international conference: 'Doris Lessing: The Writer's Quest' visit the programme page: