The coming seminar in January 2010 will be the 25 th event in this series and will be held on the theme "Creativity, Culture and Conscience In Today’s Europe".

Poet and novelist Blake Morrison will chair and participating writers are Linda Grant, Aminatta Forna, Ian Jack, Alan Jenkins, Maureen Freely and – to celebrate the 25 th anniversary of the event – we have invited as special guest the novelist Will Self.

The Walberberg Seminar is the British Council's largest and longest running annual literature seminar overseas.

The aim of the seminar is to bring together a group of academics, publishers, translators and literary journalists from Germany and other European countries with an interest in contemporary writing from the UK to discuss writing today directly with authors from the UK whose work represents different aspects of contemporary literature.

The Walberberg Seminar was founded by Malcolm Bradbury, who chaired the seminar between 1986 and 1988. Since then the seminar has been held every year and has introduced about 150 contemporary writers from the UK to its audience of some 1200 participants.

Over the years, the list of writers included Ian McEwan, Graham Swift, Angela Carter, Salman Rushdie and Jeanette Winterson.

Chairs of the seminar in succession to Malcolm Bradbury have been Christopher Hope, Valentine Cunningham, Caryl Phillips, Marina Warner, A S Byatt, Michèle Roberts, Paul Muldoon, Andrew Motion, Ali Smith, Glenn Patterson and Patricia Duncker.

In its early years the seminar took the generic theme of contemporary literature such as translation and contemporary writing.

For some time it has played an important role for the introduction of new ideas to the teaching of Creative Writing in Germany.

Over the last few years the strategic themes of the British Council in Europe have been instrumental in defining the way forward. In 2009, the seminar focused on 'Changing Literary Climates'.

For further information please contact

Marijke Brouwer
British Council
10178 Berlin
T 030 - 31 10 99 56
E-mail marijke.brouwer@britishcouncil.de