Newell Classics Event to be held at St John’s

The inaugural Newell Classics Event, celebrating the classical world, is to take place at St John’s College.

The event, open to students and the public, will present authors Ali Smith and Charlotte Higgins in conversation.

Award-winning Scottish novelist Ali Smith, who lives in Cambridge, will discuss her engagement with classical literature – in particular Horace, Ovid and Homer – with Charlotte Higgins, the Guardian’s Chief Culture Writer and author of several books on classical topics.

One of the most exciting and original authors in the UK, Ali has won several prizes including the Whitbread Novel of the Year, the Sundial Novel of the Year, the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Goldsmiths Prize, the Costa Book Awards, the Folio Prize, and she also been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize three times. Her most recent book How To Be Both (2014), deals with mourning, loss and gender ambiguity. Ali also writes for the Guardian, the Scotsman, and the Times Literary Supplement. She received a CBE in the 2015 New Year Honours for services to literature.

The Newell Classics Event will take place at 7.30pm on Thursday 28 April in the Main Lecture Theatre of the Divinity School, St John’s College. Entry is free.