Ian McGuire In Conversation with Adam Begley
13 Oct 2014
On Tuesday 14 October, 6pm at International Anthony Burgess Foundation
In 60 books and 27 novels, John Updike earned a reputation as one of modern America’s greatest men of letters. In this authoritative new biography, the first following the writer’s death in 2009, Adam Begley shows us the inner life of a man who saw himself as a literary spy in small-town New England, seeking to capture “middleness with all its grits, bumps and anonymities.”
Updike explores how the events in the author’s life shaped him and reveals a deeply complex nature full of contradictions – a gentle soul with a vicious wit; a gregarious charmer who was ruthlessly competitive. Formerly Books Editor for the New York Observer and a Guggenheim Fellow, Begley’s writing regularly appears in major newspapers and journals on both sides of the Atlantic. Critic Janet Malcolm said of the book “this is literary biography at its highest level of truth.”
Begley will be in conversation with novelist and Centre for New Writing co-director, Ian McGuire.
To book:
Tickets are priced at £6 / £4 and are available from:
- Book on 0843 208 0500
- Manchester Literature Festival