quick reference listings for UK live music and literature events

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Thur 22.05.08: African Writers' Evening w/ Robyn Scott

AFRICAN WRITERS' EVENING feat. Robyn Scott
Thursday 22 May 2008, 7.30pm (doors)
Poetry Studio, 22 Betterton Street, London (Covent Garden tube)
4.00 / 3.00 (conc)
Info: www.x-bout.com/awe
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/African-Writers-Evening/14270858721

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For the month of May, AWE presents Robyn Scott, who after a childhood spent in an isolated wilderness in Botswana, followed by boarding school in Zimbabwe, went on to study Biosciences - then became an author. Intrigued? Well, Robyn's memoir Twenty Chickens for a Saddle, which is published by Bloomsbury this month, might help unravel some of the mysteries. The book will be featured as BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week in the second week of May, but you can joinAWE on Thursday May 22, 2008 to hear the author herself read from the book and answer audience questions. The event will be hosted as usual by Ghanaian author, Nii Ayikwei Parkes and there will be floor spots from some of the emerging African writers on the UK scene.

Also, mark your calendars for June 12 - African Writers' Evening has its big night out at the Royal Festival Hall.


AUTHOR BIO:

Born in 1981, Robyn Scott was raised in a converted cowshed in the wilds of Botswana, where her grandfather had been pilot for Seretse Khama, Botswana's first president. At fourteen, she started her formal education in a boarding school in Zimbabwe. Moving to New Zealand for her undergraduate degree, she completed a BSc in Bioinformatics at the University of Auckland then won a Gates Scholarship to Cambridge University in 2004, where she took an MPhil in Bioscience Enterprise and studied the pricing of medicines in developing countries. Twenty Chickens For a Saddle, her first book, has been described as an uplifting, engaging and deeply affectionate portrayal of an extraordinary place and family. Robyn lives in London, but visits and works regularly in southern Africa.