Literature at Debenham Arts Festival
Anthony Thwaite will be celebrating publication of his new volume, Late Poems, at Debenham Parish Church on June 19. He will be reading some of the poems published to mark his 80th birthday which falls during the festival.
Of his Collected Poems (published by Enitharmon in 2007) the Times reviewer said: "This is spectacular poetry. It deserves to be read: good readers deserve to read it."
Anthony Thwaite has recently competed editing a volume of Larkin's letters to his companion Monica Jones which will be published in September.
As Larkin's literary executor, with Andrew Motion, Anthony Thwaite also edited the poet's selected letters.
Anthony Thwaite's own poems reflect the time he spent in Japan and his love of archaeology. He spent his childhood in Yorkshire, the USA (1940-44) and Somerset. After national service in Libya he read English at Oxford.
He then married and went to Japan for two years, where he taught English Literature at Tokyo University. He has also been a BBC radio producer, literary editor of the Listener and the New Statesman and co-editor of Encounter.
He lives Norfolk with his writer wife Ann who will be appearing at the same Debenham Arts Festival event.
After writing five major literary biographies, Ann Thwaite has turned to her own family history in Passageways. She will be talking about telling the story of her own ancestry at Debenham Parish Church on Saturday, June 19 at 7.30pm, when she is appearing alongside her husband, the poet Anthony Thwaite.Her eight grandparents settled in New Zealand in the middle of the 19th century. She was born in London but went to New Zealand during the second World War, returning to England to complete her education.
Passageways, published by the Otago University Press and available in the uk, is a fascinating story of the way immigrants established themselves in a new land. She has written five major biographies. Her life of A A Milne (author of Winnie-the-Pooh) won the Whitbread biography prize in 1990. Her other biographies are of Edmund Gosse, his father Philip Henry Gosse, Frances Hodgson Burnett and Emily Tennyson, the poet's wife.
She has also written numerous books for children, some taking inspiration from the remarkable experiences of her own family
Ann Thwaite lives in a picturesque mill house in Norfolk with her husband Anthony Thwaite who will be reading some of his most recent poems.
The festival will again have an impressive series of events with writers from East Anglia and further afield. Anthony Thwaite, the poet, and his wife Ann, biographer and writer of children's books, will talk about their work. Sarah Bower will return to Debenham to run another writing workshop, Benedict Gummer will talk about his book on the Black Death, and Sheila Hardy will be at a Literary Lunch to talk about her book on historical Suffolk poisonings. David Bedford promises to get everyone to do the “greatest dance ever invented by a zebra,” as well as reading one of his stories for children. Bernardine Evaristo will read her novella about knife crime, chosen as the library's Community Read.