Lev Grossman will be speaking about the task of writing fantasy now, and how it's changed since Tolkien and Lewis did it -- how the context has changed culturally and technologically, and how that has in turn changed the nature of fantasy, and the challenge for the writer.

Lev Grossman is a novelist and journalist. As a novelist, he is best known for writing the critically acclaimed Magicians Trilogy, comprising The Magicians (2009), The Magician King (2011), and The Magician’s Land (2014). The series has topped New York Times best-selling lists and there are plans to make it into a television series. As a journalist, Lev has written for The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, The Wall Street Journal, and many others. He has interviewed J.K. Rowling, Steve Jobs, and Johnny Cash. He has been the Book Critic for Time since 2002. In 2011, The Magician King was featured in The Simpsons.

This lecture is free and open to the public, but please register to attend: Current Pembroke Students and Fellows, with the option of dinner with the speaker click here. Alumni and members of the public please use the following sign-up: http://goo.gl/JjsFGc

This is the third annual lecture on fantasy literature at Pembroke College, Oxford. The series is intended to promote fantasy and science-fiction as a subject worthy of serious academic respect and study, by inviting the best writers to Pembroke, where they talk about their work and their thoughts on the genre. It also acts as a fitting memorial to Tolkien, who was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke for twenty years, and who wrote The Hobbit and much of The Lord of the Rings during his time at the college. For more information on the lecture series, please visit https://fantasylecture.wordpress.com/

This lecture is kindly sponsored by the Pembroke Annual Fund.