William Fiennes: memory and transformation
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An RSL/Booker Prize Foundation Masterclass with William Fiennes on writing about memory and transformation.
Top tips
- The big themes are alive in the smallest transactions.
- One good image conveys more than pages of assertion and explanation. Put your faith in the power of images.
- The golden detail carries a whole world on its shoulders.
- Remember James Salter: ‘Names are the first poems.’
- Keep asking, What’s at stake? If nothing’s at stake, it’s just an anecdote…
Recommended reading
| Joseph Mitchell | Up in the Old Hotel |
| Italo Calvino | The Baron in the Trees |
| Shirley Hazzard | The Transit of Venus |
| Seamus Heaney | The Hare with Amber Eyes |
| Primo Levi | The Periodic Table |
| Ivan Turgenev | Fathers and Sons |
Recorded on: November 29, 2014
Recorded at: Oxford Central Library
Sponsored by: Booker Prize Foundation
Related RSL Fellows
William Fiennes 2009
