David Copperfield

Posted by Speakeasy News > Sunday 23 May 2021 > Ready to Use

Dickens’ classic, David Copperfield, is given new life in this movie by Armando Ianucci. Beyond the slightly reinvented plot itself, we are given to experience a new way of telling stories, as boundaries between reality and fiction are blurred if not crossed. What’s more, this brand-new funny version features colour-blind casting and leads us to … Continue reading “David Copperfield”

Literature Festival in Lyon

Posted by Speakeasy News > Friday 21 May 2021 > What's On

The Littérature Live Festival will take place in Lyon and the surrounding region, as well as online, from 25 to 30 May 2021. It’s the successor of the annual Assises internationales du Roman and this year features 40 different contemporary authors, quite a few of whom write in English. As well as events at the … Continue reading “Literature Festival in Lyon”

Online Talk about “Hamnet” by Maggie O’Farrell

Posted by Speakeasy News > Monday 26 April 2021 > What's On

The winner of the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction, Maggie O’Farrell, is doing a talk at the Irish Cultural Centre, or rather online, for the ICC, on 29 April. She’ll be discussing her winning novel, Hamnet, an imagined biography of Shakespeare’s son, Hamnet, who died at the age of 11. O’Farrell had been convinced that … Continue reading “Online Talk about “Hamnet” by Maggie O’Farrell”

Women’s Prize Book News

Posted by Speakeasy News > Wednesday 24 March 2021 > Shine Bright Lycée What's On

The longlist has been announced for Britain’s Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021, which will be awarded in July. The prize was created after the 1991 Booker shortlist contained no books by women writers. To celebrate its 25th year, readers voted for a “winner of winners”: Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun, … Continue reading “Women’s Prize Book News”

David Copperfield: Dickens for the 21st Century

Posted by Speakeasy News > Monday 22 March 2021 > What's On

The Personal History of David Copperfield is far from the first adaptation of Charles Dickens’ semi-autobiographical coming-of-age novel. But Armando Iannucci has given the story a very new feel, while keeping Dickens’ humour and playing with that idea of autobiography and the art of inventing oneself through the act of writing. Iannucci is known for … Continue reading “David Copperfield: Dickens for the 21st Century”

Studying “The Buddha of Suburbia” in LLCER

Posted by Speakeasy News > Friday 08 January 2021 >

The Buddha of Suburbia, by Hanif Kureishi, one of the novels proposed as an oeuvre intégrale on the LLCER Terminale curriculum, deals with many themes that are relevant to students today: the search for identity, race, and racism and integration. These exercises, based on the first four chapters of the novel, will prepare students for … Continue reading “Studying “The Buddha of Suburbia” in LLCER”

Hanif Kureishi: The Buddha of Suburbia

Posted by Speakeasy News > Thursday 07 January 2021 > Shine Bright Lycée What's On

Hanif Kureishi is a subversive writer in search of identity beyond the borders of race, gender and class. Vanessa Guignery draws a portrait of the author of The Buddha of Suburbia, My Beautiful Launderette and My Son the Fanatic. In 1993, three years after the publication of his debut novel The Buddha of Suburbia, Hanif … Continue reading “Hanif Kureishi: The Buddha of Suburbia”

The Spy Who Turned Novelist

Posted by Speakeasy News > Monday 14 December 2020 > What's On

John le Carré, master spy novelist, died on 12 December at the age of 89. Like James Bond creator Ian Fleming, le Carré himself worked in intelligence, but his novels were the polar opposite of Bond, portraying espionage as bleak, often tedious, and above all morally ambiguous. Le Carré was a pen name, since he … Continue reading “The Spy Who Turned Novelist”

The 2020 Booker Prize Goes to First-time Scottish Author

Posted by Speakeasy News > Wednesday 25 November 2020 > What's On

Britain’s most prestigious literary prize this year was awarded on 19 November to one of four debut novels in the shortlist: Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart, a story of family love and addiction in recession-hit 1980s Glasgow. The story is set in the era of Thatcherism and deindustrialisation. For working-class families, times were hard. When … Continue reading “The 2020 Booker Prize Goes to First-time Scottish Author”