Wordfest at home at Newnham

Newnham is offering the chance to experience a series of literary gems as part of its ongoing collaboration with the widely celebrated Cambridge Wordfest event to be held from 9 to11 April. Cambridge Wordfest Spring 2010 has attracted master wordsmiths - from the 2009 Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel and bestselling novelist Philip Pullman, to award-winning screen-writer and novelist Hanif Kureishi and the BBC's World Affairs Editor and acclaimed Foreign Correspondent, John Simpson. Over many years, Newnham has played a key role in nurturing talented women writers, their work ranging from novels, screenplays, and poetry, to journalism and academic literature. The programme of Newnham Wordfest events will celebrate this rich heritage and support the project to expand the Newnham Literary Archive. Newnham's Wordfest events on Sunday 11 April include: The Constant Liberal - The Life and Work of Phyllis Bottome - Newnham's Graduate Tutor, the author and feminist academic, Pam Hirsch, takes a look at British novelist Phyllis Bottome who raised awareness of the Jewish plight in pre-war Germany and was an activist for victims of colonial injustice and racism. Her anti-Nazi novel, The Mortal Storm, became a blockbuster Hollywood film starring James Stewart. This extraordinary woman had equally extraordinary friends, including Ezra Pound, Daphne Du Maurier and Max Beerbohm.