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Narrative lifelines for a
world in peril
Professor Martin Goodman, Professor of
Creative Writing and Director of the Philip Larkin Centre for
Poetry and Creative Writing.
The US Congress has voted that pizza is a vegetable. Where do
you find the truth amidst such state-sponsored insanity? From Homer
through Shakespeare to Zen, this lecture seeks desperately needed
wisdom from the masters.
Martin Goodman has published eight books (fiction and
nonfiction), from On Bended Knees (1992 – shortlisted for the
Whitbread First Novel Award) to Suffer & Survive: The Extreme
Life of Dr J. S. Haldane (2007 –Winner, First Prize, Basis of
Medicine, BMA Book Awards 2008). His PhD in Creative Writing from
Lancaster University focused on dystopian fiction, while his most
recent novel, Look Who’s Watching (2011), follows the murder of a
Tibetan boy lama in the USA and considers the role of the media in
manipulating the political and news agenda. Current research, based
on the 20th-century life story of the Zen master Maezumi, considers
how Zen’s recent entry into the West might effect societal change
in the way it once did in Japan. Other areas of cross-cultural
exploration in creative nonfiction include studies of Amazonian
shamanism; sacred mountains of the world; the guru tradition; and
the evolution of new religions. Of particular focus in his fiction
is the inheritance of war guilt by succeeding generations, while a
short story sequence maps the berdache tradition of Native American
society onto Western culture.
‘Such narrow, narrow confines we live in. Every so often, one of
us primates escapes these dimensions, as Martin Goodman did. All we
can do is rattle the bars and look after him as he runs into the
hills. We wait for his letters home.’ – The Los Angeles
Times.
Further information
For more information,
please contact...
Karen Slater
T. 01482
466326
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