War writers sell-out at book festival event

Authors Pat Barker and Michael Morpurgo took part in the Durham Book Festival’s flagship event in Durham Cathedral tonight (Friday, October 14).

The sell-out event was one of several commemorating the First World War and was the first time the two authors have been on stage together.

They were speaking about what inspired them to use war as a theme and their wider career.

Organiser Laura Fraine, from New Writing North, said; “It’s quite special for us. Although they are well regarded as two significant writers about the First World War they have never been on the same stage before which is why they both wanted to do it.

“They were quite keen to do something together and it’s really nice to do something in Durham Cathedral.”

The trilogy of novels about the First World War by Pat Barker, who was born in Thornaby-on-Tees, began with Regeneration, and The Ghost Road, the final novel in the series, won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 1995.

Regeneration was the Big Read novel for this year’s festival, with 3,000 copies of it handed out across the county.

Michael Morpurgo, who was appointed Children’s Laureate in 2003, has written more than 130 books, including War Horse, which was adapted for stage and film, and Private Peaceful, which has also been adapted for stage.

This year’s festival, which finishes this weekend, has included more than 60 events and attracted around 7,000 people.

Ms Fraine said: “It’s been brilliant. We feel it’s been very successful. We’re pleased and we’ve had great feedback from people.

“It’s been really broad with gigs, performances and Hey Presto, our children’s theatre production, history and politics and we’ve still got lots of poetry happening this weekend.

“We had a sell-out event with Alan Johnson at the Gala and one with Anthony Horowitz which was really inspiring and lots of people were coming away saying they wanted to be writers.”

For full details of the final events visit www.durhambookfestival.com