Reading by James Meek - John Tilney Writer in Residence

This summer term's John Tilney Writer in Residence is the novelist and journalist James Meek.

British novelist and journalist James Meek was born in London in 1962; he grew up in Dundee and studied at Edinburgh University.  He spent several years in the former Soviet Union in the 1990s, and worked on the staff of The Guardian until 2005, reporting on the war in Iraq, the Chechen conflict, and the treatment of prisoners in Guantánamo Bay. In 2004 he was named Amnesty International Journalist of the Year. He now lives in London as a full-time writer and regular contributor to the London Review of Books on political issues.

He has published five novels, including The Heart Broke In, winner of the Costa Prize in 2012, and two short story collections, Last Orders and Other Stories (1992) and The Museum of Doubt (2006). In 2005 The People’s Act of Love, his historical novel about the Russian revolutionary period, won the Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year award and Ondaatje Prize. Other novels include McFarlane Boils the Sea (1989), Drivetime (1995), and We are Now Beginning Our Descent (2008).

The reading will be followed by a reception. 

During the Summer Term James Meek runs two workshops a week for English Department students [Wednesdays at 11.00am and 2.00pm, in D/M/212 - please sign up if you wish to attend).  He is also available for individual consultations with students later on Wednesday afternoons.