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This Devastating Fever, a new novel by Sophie Cunningham, follows the story of novelist Alice Fox and her struggles to write about Leonard Woolf as he deals with what he and Virginia would do if Hitler invaded England.

The novel, shortlisted for a Victorian Premier’s Literary Award, links Leonard and Virginia’s past dilemmas to those of the present, as Alice deals with the COVID-19 pandemic.

About the author and the talk

Cunningham, a member of the Order of Australia for her literary contributions and the author of nine novels, spent 15 years writing her latest.

If you can get to Sydney, Australia, you can hear Cunningham talk about her novel at Castle Hill Library 11 a.m. – noon on May 27, as part of the Sydney Writers’ Festival.

Complex, darkly funny and deeply moving,– a dazzlingly original novel about what it’s like to live through a time that feels like the end of days, and how we can find comfort and answers in the past.

Two noted authors will discuss the new editions of Virginia Woolf’s diaries, at the British Library on May 31, and you can listen in by registering to receive the event recording direct to your inbox to watch at your leisure on or after June 14, which is Dalloway Day.

As part of the Royal Society of Literature’s Dalloway Day celebrations, two contributors to the new editions of the diaries join forces to discuss the new volumes and how the diaries reveal Woolf’s unique mind, while also adding rich insight into her life and times.

They are Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Margo Jefferson and author and Royal Society of Literature Fellow and Woolf’s great-niece Virginia Nicholson.

About the speakers

Jefferson was a theatre and book critic for Newsweek and the New York Times. Her Pulitzer Prize-winning writing has appeared in, among other publications, Vogue, New York magazine and New Republic.

She is a professor of writing at Columbia University School of the Arts and the author of Negroland – which was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize and winner of a National Book Critics Circle Award – On Michael Jackson; and Constructing a Nervous System her wildly innovative 2022 memoir, was recently announced as the winner of the 2023 Rathbones Folio Prize.

Nicholson is the author of the acclaimed social histories How Was It For You?: Women, Sex, Love and Power in the 1960s, Among the Bohemians: Experiments in Living 1900-1939, Singled Out: How Two Million Women Survived without Men After the First World War, Millions Like Us: Women’s Lives in the Second World War and Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes: The Story of Women in the 1950s.

She is the daughter of the art historian and writer Quentin Bell, acclaimed for his biography of his aunt Virginia Woolf. Her mother, Anne Olivier Bell, edited the original five volumes of Virginia Woolf’s Diaries.

More Dalloway Day events from the RSL

Get the details on more RSL Dalloway Day events. They include the following:

  • The pulse of a perfect heart
    Published on the RSL website on June 14.
    The RSL, in partnership with Peninsula Press, has commissioned three writers to respond to the combined might, maps and meaning of two distinctively London-based novels: Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf and Love, Leda by Mark Hyatt.
  • Neil Bartlett and Sarah Ruhl: Working with Orlando 
    Available from June 14.
    Playwrights Neil Bartlett and Sarah Ruhl come together in conversation to discuss their adaptations of Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando.
  • Zadie Smith In Conversation: On Virginia Woolf
    June 14, 7 p.m.
    Zadie Smith joins Lisa Appignanesi at the British Library for a conversation about the life and works of Virginia Woolf.

The Beyond Words French Literature Festival at Institut français in Kensington, London celebrates Virginia Woolf’s work at 8:15 p.m. on May 19 as Paul B. Preciado and Merve Emre engage in conversation on Orlando’s impact on Preciado’s art and personal journey.

Preciado is a philosopher and writer. Emre is an author, academic and literary critic.

Virginia Woolf wrote my biography before me when publishing Orlando, a century ago – trans writer and philosopher Paul B. Preciado

More on the agenda

But don’t stop there. From May 12-21, the seventh edition of the festival will cross borders and genres to take participants on a literary journey through lively discussions, powerful readings and inspiring live performances and screenings.

Renowned authors from both side of the Channel, such as Ian McEwan, Lauren Elkin, Deborah Levy, Éric Vuillard, Laurent Mauvignier and Muriel Barbery, as well as new exciting voices, will meet, discuss or present their latest releases.

Many events are in English or both English and French and are priced at £3-15.

Proposals are invited for chapters of previously unpublished and original work to be included in an edited collection, Modernist Continuities: Virginia Woolf and Women in Turkey.

Papers are welcome that engage with Virginia Woolf’s reception by women writers in Turkey, literary networks built between Woolf’s works and works by women writers in Turkey, and her influence on the women’s movement.

The book will form a picture of how Woolf’s writing has served as an inspiration for women in Turkey.

Possible topics

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• Virginia Woolf’s comments on or about Turkey
• Bloomsbury Group’s connection to Turkey
• Woolf’s legacy in women’s literature in Turkey. Of particular interest might be
• Halide Edip Adıvar, Tomris Uyar, Sevgi Soysal, Leyla Erbil, Tezer Özlü, Erendiz Atasü, Nilgün Marmara, Mina Urgan
• The influence of Virginia Woolf’s writing on women’s movement in Turkey
• Translations of Virginia Woolf’s works.

Who can submit

Submissions from scholars of all backgrounds and levels of experience exploring Virginia Woolf’s connection to women writers and women’s movement in Turkey are encouraged. Particularly welcome are interdisciplinary contributions aiming at investigating Woolf’s influence on different aspects of literary, political and cultural life in Turkey.

Authors are invited to submit a short bio and a 500-word abstract by May 31. Full drafts between 7,000 and 9,000 words (including notes and bibliography) written in MLA format will be due on Aug. 31.

The collection is due to be published in 2024, and editors have received positive interest for publication from Bloomsbury Publishing.

Deadline and contacts

Send abstracts and queries to: virginiawoolfandwomeninturkey@gmail.com
Deadline for submissions: 31 May 2023
Contact email: virginiawoolfandwomeninturkey@gmail.com

 

Living in the U.S., I am not always able to listen to BBC broadcasts. But I could — and did — give a listen to a new one on the Radio 4 show “In Our Time.” It discusses Virginia Woolf and A Room of One’s Own (1929).

In the 42-minute program, Melvyn Bragg and guests Hermione Lee and Michele Barrett discuss Woolf’s classic and oft-quoted essay about women and literature that contains the famous line: “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”

The discussion also involves:

  • how Woolf’s views in A Room of One’s Own are reflected in her 1928 novel Orlando,
  • the precursors to Room, Woolf’s 1928 lectures at Newnham and Girton colleges, the latter of which she attended with Vita Sackville-West,
  • Woolf’s ideas about the lecture as a form,
  • women’s roles as figures in literature rather than writers of literature,
  • Woolf’s invention of Shakespeare’s sister,
  • Room’s humor,
  • Room’s legacy,
  • and more.

Hermione Lee is emeritus professor of English literature at the University of Oxford and Michele Barrett is emeritus professor of modern literary and cultural theory at Queen Mary, University of London.

Listen now.

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