Walberberg Seminar

The Walberberg Seminar is the British Council's largest and longest running annual literature seminar overseas. The next seminar will be held in January 2009.

The most recent Walberberg Seminar was held from 24  – 27 January 2008 at Akademie Schmockwitz, Berlin on the theme ‘Rooted Realities and Maps of Migration’. Patricia Duncker was Chair and writers included Alice Oswald, Andrew Cowan, Leila Aboulela, E. A. Markham and Stephen Knight.

The Walberberg Seminar was founded by Malcolm Bradbury, who chaired the first seminar in 1986. Since then the Seminar has been held every year and has introduced a large number of contemporary British writers to a German audience. Chairs of the seminar, in succession to Malcolm Bradbury, have been A. S. Byatt, Valentine Cunningham, Christopher Hope, Paul Muldoon, Caryl Phillips, Michèle Roberts, Ali Smith and Marina Warner. In its early years the seminar took the generic theme of Contemporary British Writing, but more recently it has focused on specific themes connected with contemporary literature such as translation, contemporary writing and whose English? The seminar has been especially important in recent years in introducing new ideas into the teaching of Creative Writing in Germany.

The seminar is attended by approximately 45 participants from across Europe, including a broad mix of academic critics, professors of English (with many from the younger generation), publishers, journalists and translators.

Writers who have appeared over the years are: John Agard, Simon Armitage, Paul Bailey, Sebastian Barry, Louis de Bernieres, Ciaran Carson, Angela Carter, Amit Chaudhuri, David Constantine, Jim Crace, Marina Carr, Fred D'Aguiar, Anne Devlin, Jenny Diski, Maura Dooley, Margaret Drabble, Douglas Dunn, Geoff Dyer, David Edgar, Bernardine Evaristo, Alison Fell, James Fenton, Tibor Fischer, John Fuller, Maggie Gee, Lavinia Greenlaw, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Wilson Harris, Philip Hensher, Michael Hofmann, Alan Hollinghurst, Richard Holmes, Robert Irwin, Kazuo Ishiguro, Kathleen Jamie, Amryl Johnson, Jackie Kay, Toby Litt, Penelope Lively, Liz Lochhead, Moy McCrory, Ian McEwan, Bernard MacLaverty, Glyn Maxwell, Pauline Melville, Livi Michael, Timothy Mo, Blake Morrison, Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill, Lawrence Norfolk, Kathy Page, Tim Parks, Don Paterson, Glenn Patterson, Jonathan Raban, Craig Raine, Jane Rogers, Bernice Rubens, Salman Rushdie, Graham Swift, Anthony Thwaite, Rose Tremain, Jenny Uglow, Michelene Wandor, Fay Weldon, Timberlake Wertenbaker, Nigel Williams.

For more information about the Walberberg Seminar see the British Council Literature Department website.