At a time of rising tension between the freedom of the artist and counter voices across Britain and Europe, Homerton is proud to host a public event with a stellar panel, to discuss the extent to which writers are limited in their creative expression. What responsibilities must writers consider, when freedom of expression is increasingly politicised and polarised?
This free public event was organised by the European Alliance of Academies, a transnational network of art and literature academies and cultural institutions across Europe, advocating for the freedom of the arts. The UK is represented by the Royal Society of Literature, and the Chair of the RSL, Daljit Nagra, will moderate the distinguished international panel.
The public event formed part of a short conference "On Freedom of Artistic Expression in Literature in the 21st Century": biographies of the participants and examples of their work can be downloaded from this page.
Daljit Nagra MBE FRSL is Chair of the Royal Society of Literature, Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University, and an Honorary Fellow of Homerton College. He presents the weekly programme Poetry Extra on Radio 4 Extra. Daljit has published four poetry collections, all with Faber & Faber, which between them 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.
Dame Marina Warner CH DBE FRSL FBA writes fiction and cultural history. Her award-winning books explore myths and fairy tales; they include “From the Beast to the Blonde” (1994) and “Stranger Magic: Charmed States & the Arabian Nights” (2011). She has published five novels, including “The Lost Father” (1988), “Indigo” (1992) and “The Leto Bundle” (2001), three collections of short stories and essays on literature and art. “Inventory of a Life Mislaid: An unreliable memoir (2021)” evokes her childhood in Egypt. From 2017 to 2022, she was President of the Royal Society of Literature and since 2016, has been working with the project Stories in Transit in Sicily. She is Professor of English and Creative Writing at Birkbeck College and is currently writing a book about the concept of Sanctuary.
Réka Borda (1992, Hungary) is a writer, poet, editor, and PhD researcher. So far she has published one book of poetry and one novel. She is particularly interested in the relationship between people and the environment and the impact of power on society. A former PEN Catalá and Fondation Jan Michalski fellow, she is in her sixth year of organizing literary camps for emerging talents. Her texts have been translated into English, Slovak, Norwegian, Spanish and Catalan.
Bianca Bellová is a Czech author of six novels and many short stories. Her novel “The Lake” won the Czech national Magnesia Litera Award for the Book of the Year, the EU Prize for Literature and its English translation has been awarded with the EBRD Literary Prize. It has been translated into 23 languages.
Ferenc Czinki is President of the Society of Hungarian Authors. He was born in Hungary in 1982. Journalist, essayist, and fiction author, he publishes in national newspapers and literary journals. His novel “A pozsonyi metro” (The Bratislava Metro) was published in 2017 and his short story collection “Egy kocsma város” (A Pub City) appeared in 2014. He is an international cultural manager, and member of several cultural organizations.
On the following day, Sunday 27 August, there was another public event: "Who Has the Right to Speak? Whose Voice Is Heard?” with Belgian author Annelies Verbeke, the British writer, lecturer and broadcaster Kenan Malik, and French writer Cécile Wajsbrot, moderated by Homerton College Emeritus Fellow, David Whitley.
