Pat Barker is the multi award-winning British writer of 13 novels. She’s won a fair few prizes in her time, including the Booker Prize for The Ghost Road (1995). This was the final instalment of her much acclaimed World War I Regeneration Trilogy. She’s just finished Noon Day, the third novel in her Life Class trilogy, which spans the First and Second World Wars.
To celebrate our recent UNESCO status, the City of Literature team are asking all book groups in Nottingham to select a Pat Barker novel for their May meetings so that we can all read and enjoy her work together. Barker once wrote, “Fiction should be about moral dilemmas that are so bloody difficult that the author doesn’t know the answer. What I hate in fiction is when the author knows better than the characters what they should do.” Discussing and debating “moral dilemmas” is what makes book groups so enjoyable and so she is a great starting point for this city read.
Although it would be great to turn the Market Square into one giant boozer and have a record-breaking book group debate, for now social media will have to do. The City of Literature team would like to hear which book you’re reading and why, what quotes you like, and who your favourite characters are. These are to be shared on Twitter using the hashtag #Notts4Barker. Some of the best tweets will then receive free tickets to see the author in conversation with Sharon Monteith at the Nottingham Playhouse on Wednesday 15 June at 7.30pm.
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