For this episode, we showcase the Harriet Martineau Lecture 2022, an event which celebrates the legacy of a remarkable, world-changing woman by inviting globally-renowned radical speakers to respond to her life and work.

Each year, we partner with Norfolk & Norwich Festival to deliver City of Literature — a festival of words and ideas, and a central part of this festival is the Harriet Martineau Lecture. In 2022, we were delighted to welcome bestselling novelist, memoirist and literary activist Kit de Waal, who presented the lecture in the beautiful environs of the Spiegeltent. Kit gave a thought-provoking lecture covering a range of topics, including human rights, equality, hunger and, as she calls it, ‘compassion without judgement’.

Book tickets to come to this year’s Harriet Martineau Lecture →

Kit de Waal, born to an Irish mother and Caribbean father, was brought up among the Irish community of Birmingham in the 60’s and 70’s. Her debut novel My Name Is Leon was an international bestseller, shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award for 2017. Her second novel, The Trick to Time, was longlisted for the Women’s Prize and her young adult novel Becoming Dinah was shortlisted for the Carnegie CLIP Award 2020. She also crowdfunded and edited an anthology of working class memoir, Common People, which was published in 2018, and co-founded the free digital Big Book Weekend in 2020. Kit was named the FutureBook Person of the Year in 2019.

City of Literature is a Norfolk & Norwich Festival and National Centre for Writing presentation, programmed by the National Centre for Writing.