The FHS-SW1 Literary Society welcomes Professor John Mullan
The English Department’s inaugural Literary Society event took place on 10th November, when we were most fortunate to be joined by Professor John Mullan, who gave a lecture on “Tricks of Contemporary Fiction”.
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Professor Mullan, Head of English at University College London, also enjoys an eminent media profile, as a reviewer in the Books section of The Guardian, a host of The Guardian’s monthly Book Club meetings and a former Booker Prize judge. In the course of an hour, Professor Mullan engaged and stimulated his audience as he toured the landscape of contemporary fiction, with nods to earlier works including those by Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and E.M Forster. Focusing primarily on Ian McEwan’s Atonement, the audience were invited to consider the significance of narrative devices including metanarrative, prolepsis and imitation.
The audience, consisting of our own Sixth Form girls as well as A level English Literature students and teachers from Francis Holland, Regent’s Park, Wimbledon High School, The Grey Coat Hospital School and The Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School, thoroughly enjoyed Professor Mullan’s talk and were encouraged to further their horizons as far as wider reading in contemporary fiction is concerned.