MLF Chapter & Verse
The Manchester Literature Festival Blog
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Review: An Afternoon with Lauren Child
October 12, 2018
Charlotte Stevenson is inspired by An Afternoon with Lauren Child. ‘The more you look at things, the more extraordinary they become. An image really can change the world’. These are the words that have reverberated with me the most from the Manchester Literature Festival afternoon with current Children’s Laureate, Lauren Child. To celebrate the recent […]
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Review: Pat Barker in conversation
October 12, 2018
Aisha Sodawala enjoys Pat Barker discussing her latest novel The Silence of the Girls. Kamila Shamsie was in conversation with Pat Barker in this event where Pat talked about her enthralling retelling of Homer’s The Iliad from the perspective of Briseis. On Pat’s first reading of The Iliad she not only saw these mighty violent […]
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Review: Shami Chakrabarti
November 16, 2017
Aoife Inman, MLF Digital Reporter, enjoys an inspiring event with Shami Chakrabarti The theatre is brimming. Such a packed venue is undoubtedly a product of recent events on the global political stage. The shock of the past year has engendered a surge in activism, especially amongst young people. Examining the audience, it is a […]
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Review: Rebecca Solnit
November 10, 2017
Young Digital Reporter Jess Molyneux enjoys an evening with Rebecca Solnit and Jeanette Winterson What better note to start on, to combat any jitters we might have had on a wintry Halloween evening, than that Manchester had very recently been pronounced a UNESCO City of Literature. Glowing with pride in that home town of ours […]
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Review: Simon Schama
November 10, 2017
Young Digital Reporter Matthew Singleton reports on our event with Simon Schama It was a packed and perhaps surprisingly loud auditorium prior to the talk, considering the focus of the on-stage conversation would be on an 800 page, 5-decade-spanning tome. But that is the appeal of Simon Schama, a man known for his engaging histories […]
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Review: John Banville and Mike McCormack
November 10, 2017
Young Digital Reporter Alex Swinton reviews John Banville and Mike McCormack in conversation with Ian McGuire On Tuesday the 11th of October, I had the pleasure of attending a discussion between John Banville and Mike McCormack, ran by the Manchester Literature Festival. John Banville (pictured) has written 16 novels over the course of around 45 […]
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Review: George Monbiot
November 10, 2017
Young Digital Reporter Joe Fenn reports on our sell-out event with author and journalist George Monbiot As the audience slowly seeps into Manchester’s grand Dancehouse Theatre, eventually to fill practically all of the more than four hundred seats, faintly in the background float the quiet, Dylan-esque twangs of an indiscernible singer-songwriter. When the audience has […]
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Review: Lyndall Gordon
November 10, 2017
MLF young digital reporter Jess Molyneux reviews our event with Outsiders author Lyndall Gordon Assembled under the Portico Library’s famous blue domed ceiling, it really did feel that we were seated at the heart of a Manchester which has been a thriving centre of culture and intellect for centuries. At once quaint and magnificent, this […]
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Review: Roddy Doyle
November 10, 2017
Young Digital Reporter Elizabeth Gibson reviews our event with Irish novelist Roddy Doyle As I prepare to see Roddy Doyle at Manchester Literature Festival, I muse on the last time I encountered him: a couple of years ago, in an event based around his gentle, humorous Barrytown series. I am aware that tonight will probably […]
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Review: An Evening with Zadie Smith
December 9, 2016
Our Young Digital Reporter Laura Cooper reports from a wonderful evening of literature and conversation with Zadie Smith Having already appeared at events in Cambridge and London, Zadie Smith paid a visit to Manchester Central Library on 24th November for a conversation with Katie Popperwell to bookend the 2016 Manchester Literature Festival. She was here to […]