News

Windham-Campbell in London!

January 05, 2015

London's most fabulous literary impresario, Damian Barr, will host a special literary salon on January 26th featuring the Windham-Campbell Prizes and Prizewinner Aminatta Forna.

Patrick Gale, Aminatta Forna, the Windham-Campbell Prizes & Polly Samson.
In The Rumpus Room at the Mondrian London Hotel at Sea Containers Monday January 26th 2015.

Doors open 630pm - join us for cocktails and drink in the view. We start at 730pm.
We finish around 9.30pm but you’re very welcome to stay on or slip downstairs for supper.

Our first Salon of 2015! We’re causing a rumpus on the South Bank! The brand new Mondrian Hotel shimmers next to Tate Modern, mere steps from Blackfriars, commanding a panorama of St Pauls and beyond. Wait till you see it! I’ll be propping up the deco-licious bar for you.

Patrick Gale thrilled us with a peek at his work-in-progress last year and tonight he premieres the finished novel: A Place Winter. It’s an Edwardian Brokeback. The Croatian town of Gost bakes in summer and freezes in winter but always, always is haunted by conflict. Aminatta Forna takes us there in the Hired Man. Let me introduce you to literary lynchpins and society charmers Donald Windham and Sandy Campbell who knew everyone from Tennessee to Tallulah. In 2013, in their memory, Yale University launched the Donald Windham-Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prizes - up to eight awards each worth $150,000! Aminatta won one. We’ll get the dish from the man who runs it Michael Kelleher. Finally, the divine Polly Samson will unveil her new novel The Kindness—a deep, dark and beautifully wrought thriller of the emotions that just won’t leave you after.