The 2022 Lancaster International Fiction Lecture, a joint venture between Litfest and Lancaster University’s Departments of Languages & Cultures and English Literature & Creative Writing, will be the headline event in Litfest’s ‘Autumn Weekend’.

The 2022 lecture will be given online in English on 11 October at 1pm by the internationally acclaimed Indian author Geetanjali Shree, whose dazzling novel Tomb of Sand won this year’s Booker International Fiction Prize worth £50,000, shared with her translator Daisy Rockwell.

In her lecture called ‘Writing in Troubled Times’Geetanjali Shree will explore the theme of writing fiction in troubled times, times in which the separation between the personal and the political, the home and the world becomes increasingly difficult to maintain.

“The resultant tension,” she says “may be a source of inspiration, but it is also a huge pressure on the writer. Constantly the writer has to negotiate between the need for a space of solitude and the intrusion of an invasive noisy world.

“I will bring in my society and culture in some of its specificities to illustrate these concerns. And, of course, to reiterate the need to guard the space of literature against non-literary proscriptions and intrusions.”

You can register here:https://www.crowdcast.io/e/intfictionlecture/register

At 6pm on 10 October, Geetanjali Shree will discuss her prize-winning novel, Tomb of Sand, with the Litfest International Fiction Book Club in a special ‘Autumn Weekend’ edition.

Like all the club’s sessions this special edition is open to everyone. https://www.crowdcast.io/e/internationalfictionbookc/register

Litfest’s international programme is funded by a grant from the Fondation Jan Michalski.

Details of all Litfest’s ‘Autumn Weekend’ events and the donation campaign are now available at www.litfest.org. All Litfest events will be available on Crowdcast for 30 days from 12 October.

LITFEST aims to stimulate, promote and reflect the best in contemporary literature, illustration and ideas in the UK and beyond.

As one of the oldest literature festivals in the country, Litfest has successfully created a wide variety of events for its audiences since 1978, always championing the local, the national and the international.

Currently a volunteer organisation based at The Storey Institute in Lancaster, Litfest now seeks to build on this legacy to create the capacity to deliver projects and events all year round, leading up to and away from the annual festival in March.