Amos Oz in conversation with Melvyn Bragg

23 Feb 2009

The Great Minds Series

Information correct on date of event.

There are pundits. There are columnists. There are commentators. And then - over and above them - there are the people who set the intellectual agenda: the great minds of our time. Intelligence²'s new Great Minds series is a chance to hear some of these intellectual weathermakers in full flow. We kick off in 2009 with Amos Oz and George Steiner. There will be a chance to meet the speaker's over a drink beforehand and a book signing afterwards.

The lecture took place at: Savoy Place.

Amos Oz: One of Israel's best known novelists and intellectuals. A founding member of the Peace Now movement, Oz has always been at the forefront of the Israeli struggle for identity and a staunch advocate of a two-state solution. Through his writing, which is rooted in the tempestuous history of his homeland, he examines the eternal human themes of loss, exile, redemption and hope. Newsweek writes, "Eloquent, humane, even religious in the deepest sense, [Oz] emerges as a kind of Zionist Orwell: a complex man obsessed with simple decency and determined above all to tell the truth, regardless of whom it offends."

Lord Bragg: Broadcaster, novelist and writer, Lord Bragg is perhaps best known for the LWT arts programme The South Bank Show, which he has written, edited and produced since 1978. He is also known for his many programmes on BBC Radio 4, including Start the Week, which he presented for ten years, In Our Time, and The Routes of English, a history of the English language. He is a Labour life peer. His most recent books are Twelve Books that Changed the World (2006), and a new novel, Remember Me (2008), the story of a love affair between two students, one French and one English.