Writing Common People: Between history and fiction

Alison Light (writer, professor and public historian) will talk about her recent book, Common People: the History of an English Family which used her own family history to follow the lives of the migrant, working poor.  A mix of memoir, social history and reflection, the book raises questions about the limits and possibilities of family history as a form of multiple biography; how we write the lives of the unknown, especially in these days of ‘poverty porn’; and the boundaries between history, fiction and personal memory. 

This event is co-sponsored by the Centre for Modernist Studies.