About The Romantic World of Barbara Cartland
Join Matthew Sweet for a captivating exploration of one of the twentieth century’s most prolific and enigmatic writers, Dame Barbara Cartland. Drawing on his dazzling new biography, The Great Dictator, Matthew uncovers the extraordinary life behind the legendary figure who wrote more than 720 books and helped define modern romantic fiction. With unprecedented access to Dame Barbara’s archives and firsthand accounts, this conversation will reveal a shrewd, complex and often contradictory woman navigating fame, ambition and reinvention.
Matthew talks to academic, critic and broadcaster Professor Shahidha Bari.
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Matthew Sweet
Matthew Sweet presents Free Thinking on BBC Radio 4 and Sound of Cinema on BBC Radio 3.
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His 25 years of programmes include The Culture Show, Checking into History, five series of The Philosophers Arms and 1922: The Birth of Now, a ten-part history of modernism. He has been film critic of the Independent on Sunday, photography critic of Newsweek and fashion columnist for 1843 / The Economist.
Shahidha Bari
Shahidha Bari is a Professor at the University of the Arts London, a presenter of BBC Radio 4's Free Thinking and Start the Week.
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She’s the author of Dressed: The Secret Life of Clothes and Look Again: Fashion. Educated at the University of Cambridge and Cornell, her interests are in the intersection of literature, art and philosophy. She was the winner of The Observer Anthony Burgess Arts Journalism Prize 2016 and has been a judge for the Forward Poetry Prizes, the Baillie Gifford Non-Fiction Prize and the Booker Prize. She writes for The Financial Times, The Guardian, Times Literary Supplement and Frieze magazine and is a Trustee of the Booker Prizes.
Venue and bar opening times
This is an in-person only event in the British Library Knowledge Centre.
The Knowledge Centre and bar open from 18.00.
Please arrive no later than 15 minutes before the start time of this event. If you have specific access requirements please email customer@bl.uk
Concessions
There are a range of concessions available. These include discounts for British Library Members, Young Persons (16–25s), and visitors on Universal/Pension Credit and free entry for carers.
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