Writing will be honoured at Sussex University throughout the month of May. The library will house the Sussex Writing exhibition to celebrate the writing of former and current Sussex students and members of staff. Set up by Professor Alistair Davies and two third year English Literature students, the exhibition will run for three weeks starting from the second week of May.
Around fifty items will be presented at the exhibition from novels, to poems and plays. There will be something for everyone’s taste from modern and contemporary poetry, to modern fiction and drama, as well as performance poetry, popular and thriller writers. Along with leading figures in writing such as Ian McEwan and Howard Baker, the exhibition will honour younger writers as Tobias Hill, Bethan Roberts, Jonathan Buckley. Poets will also be well represented with names such as performance poet Patience Agbabi, 2010 T.S. Eliot prize winner Peter Gross, as well as former members of the English department, as English and American Literature Professor and English professor respectively, Drew Milne and Andrew Crozier.
A small part of the exhibition will also be devoted to novels and plays set in Sussex or referring to the University, which appears in the works of leading writers Anthony Powell, Tom Stoppard and Alan Hollinghurst, as well as in former students’ Judith Woolf and Charlotte Greig works to name only a few of those who have been inspired by the university.
The love story between Sussex University and writing is a long running one. Since its creation 50 years ago, it has produced a large number of talented writers. The high profile Ian Mc Ewan studied English Literature at Sussex and achieved worldwide fame with the Oscar-winning movie adaptation of his novel ‘Atonement’, whilst Bethan Roberts released ‘My Policeman’ earlier this year, a novel set in a 1950s Brighton about the impossible love story between a gay policeman and an employee of the local museum. Not content with celebrating the talent of Sussex former students, the exhibition will also shine a light on the importance of creative writing courses at the University. Numbers of writers, including popular writer C.J. Sansom and well renowned poets, have indeed studied creative writing in the English department.
So if you love writing, or Sussex, or both, come by the Special Collections on the top floor of the library in May and celebrate Sussex writing.
