Shakespeare Globe

Sunday 19 April

Heavenly Pleasures

Catherine Millet, Florian Zeller and Leila Aboulela

Heavenly Pleasures explores the idea of sexual heaven across cultures. Featuring French writer Catherine Millet, whose internationally best-selling memoir, The Sexual Life of Catherine M, was dubbed ‘…the most explicit book about sex ever written by a woman’, and Florian Zeller who explores the relationship between the West and Islam from the point of view of a young man on a quest for pleasure in his novel, Fascination of Evil. Joining them is Leila Aboulela, a Sudanese writer whose celebrated novel The Translator looks at the difficulty of loving someone of another faith.
This event is chaired by Lisa Appignanesi, award-winning author of Freud’s Women and Unholy Loves and President of English PEN.

'There's nothing Millet won't describe about the mechanics of sex. She's not ashamed, and, more important, she makes no attempt to justify her behaviour'
The Guardian on Catherine Millet’s The Sexual Life of Catherine M.

'A story of love and faith all the more moving for the restraint with which it is written'
JM Coetzee on Leila Aboulela’s The Translator.

'With this novel Zeller confirms his place among the best authors of his generation'
Le Spectacle du Monde on Florian Zeller’s The Fascination of Evil.

Time: 7.30pm
Venue: Underglobe
Tickets: £5

FELT PEN

This year Free the Word! introduces some new events for younger minds and imaginations. FELT PEN invites children and their families to come and play, read and write, and share what they think heaven and earth is all about.

13 Secrets of Poetry

Adrian Mitchell with Sasha Mitchell

Time: 11am
Venue: Young Vic Maria Studio
www.youngvic.org

Literary Lunch - festival highlights

Have lunch while you chew on the words of some of the delicious writers at this year’s festival. Plus a few surprise extras!

Time: 1pm
Venue: Young Vic Cut Bar
Tickets: Free so just turn up but first come first served!
www.youngvic.org

The President’s Tobacco

In association with Bilimankhwe Arts

A rehearsed reading and Q&A with Jack Mapanje

In a fictional African country, ordinary farmers are competing to grow and sell tobacco against the big people in the Party and Government. One small farmer, Mtema, appears to be able to run a profitable farm and pay his men well. But when competition escalates, he is imprisoned for embezzling the president’s tobacco leaving Mrs Mtema to face an uncertain and dangerous future…

Celebrated Malawian writer and poet, Jack Mapanje, unveils his first play, The President’s Tobacco, for the first time exclusively for Free the Word!

Time: 3.30pm
Venue: Young Vic Maria Studio
Tickets: £5
www.youngvic.org

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