The evening will explore how birds have been imagined in British literature from the Victorian age to the present.  Will Abberley, lecturer in English at the University of Sussex, will give a talk on how Edward Booth and other Victorian ornithologists used techniques of storytelling to document bird behaviour, and what their anecdotes of hunting and watching birds tell us about how people imagined the relationship between humans and the natural world in the past.

Nicholas Royle, Professor of English at the University of Sussex, will then read from his highly acclaimed new novel An English Guide to Birdwatching, described variously as a ‘daring novel, both wickedly playful and deeply touching’ (Alison Moore) and ‘a curiously compelling investigation of the nature of writing and the writing of nature’ (Robert Macfarlane).

This is a FREE event but please book your tickets via Eventbrite.