Please join us at St Hugh’s College on Tuesday 6 May 2205, 5.30pm-6.30pm when St Hugh’s alumni Han Smith (Modern Languages, 2008) and Seth Insua (English, 2008) will be discussing their recent publications and explore what it means to be ‘Writing Fiction Now’.
Han Smith is a queer writer, translator and adult literacy teacher, and received a London Writers Award in 2019/2020. Her previous work has been shortlisted for the Desperate Literature Prize, the Bridport Prize and the London Independent Short Story Prize, and published/commissioned by Cipher Press, the Austrian Cultural Forum and the European Poetry Festival, among others.
Portraits at the Palace of Creativity and Wrecking was published by John Murray Originals and shortlisted for the 2024 Goldsmiths Prize for ‘fiction at its most novel’. It follows the fragmented story of a young almost-woman growing up in the shadow of a former prison camp in a country that has failed to confront its brutal past. In the words of the chair of judges for the Goldsmiths Prize: “At once a poignant coming-of-age story and an exploration of how language is shaped by ideology, Portraits is tender and merciless in its slanting look at the history of state violence.” The novel was also selected as one of The Guardian’s best books of 2024.
Seth Insua is an Anglo-Spanish writer and artist. He was born in Kent in 1989 and studied English Language and Literature at St Hugh’s, Oxford, graduating in 2011 with a First. He lives with his husband, David, between Newcastle upon Tyne and Madrid. Human, Animal, published by Vervebooks is his first novel.
In Human, Animal, a farmer’s son invites animal rights activists to the family dairy farm, and father and son lock horns. Described as a deeply moving debut about one family’s struggle to find connection in a rapidly changing world, Human, Animal is an ode to the wild, a journey of self-discovery and a hopeful path to common ground. The FT called it ‘Impressive’, GQ magazine listed it as one of their top books of the year, and it moved Russell T Davies to tears. It was selected for the BBC Radio 2 Book Club with Sara Cox.
The event will be held in the MGA Lecture Room at St Hugh’s, with refreshments provided. To register for the event please click here.
