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SUMMARY:The Unanticipated Pleasures of the Writing Life - Simon Winchester
 \, Author of 'The Map that Changed the World'
DTSTART:20080208T173000Z
DTEND:20080208T183000Z
UID:TALK8734@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Janet Gibson
DESCRIPTION:Simon Winchester will be talking about the serendipitous event
 s that led him from his early career in geology to his more conspicuous an
 d successful life in writing. This change of path came about through what 
 he says were entirely propitious happenings\, which along with the unexpec
 ted - which he promises too - constitute the core of serendipity. \n\nBiog
 raphy\n\nSimon Winchester\, author\, journalist\, and broadcaster\, has wo
 rked as a foreign correspondent for most of his career so far\, although h
 e graduated from Oxford in 1966 with a degree in geology and spent a year 
 working as a geologist in the Ruwenzori Mountains in western Uganda\, and 
 on oil rigs in the North Sea\, before joining his first newspaper in 1967.
 His journalistic work\, mainly for The Guardian and The Sunday Times\, has
  based him in Belfast\, Washington\, DC\, New Delhi\, and New York\, Londo
 n\, and Hong Kong\, where he covered such stories as the Ulster crisis\, t
 he creation of Bangladesh\, the fall of President Marcos\, the Watergate a
 ffair\, the Jonestown Massacre\, and assassination of Egypt’s President 
 Sadat\, the recent death and cremation of Pol Pot and \, in 1982 the Falkl
 ands War.  During this conflict he was arrested and spent three months in 
 prison in Ushuaia\, Tierra del Fuego\, on spying charges.  He has been a f
 reelance writer since 1987.He now works principally as an author\, althoug
 h he contributes to a number of American and British magazines and journal
 s\, including Harper’s\, The Smithsonian\, The National Geographic Magaz
 ine\, The Spectator\, Granta\, The New York Times and The Atlantic Monthly
 .  He was appointed Asia-Pacific Editor of Conde Nast Traveler at its ince
 ption in 1987\, later becoming Editor-at-Large.  His writings have won him
  several awards\, including Britain’s Journalist of the Year. He writes 
 and presents television films – including a series on the final colonial
  years of Hong Kong and on a variety of other historical topics – and is
  a frequent contributor to the BBC radio program\, From Our Own Correspond
 ent.  Winchester also lectures widely – most recently before London’s 
 Royal Geographical Society (of which he is a Fellow) – and to audiences 
 aboard the cruise liners QE2 and Seabourn Pride. His books cover a wide ra
 nge of subjects\, including a study of the remaining British Empire\, the 
 colonial architecture of India\, aristocracy\, the American Midwest\, his 
 experience of the months in an Argentine prison on spying charges\, his de
 scription of a six-month walk through the Korean peninsula\, the Pacific O
 cean and the future of China.  Most recently he has written The River at t
 he Center of the World\, about China’s Yangtze River\; the best-selling 
 The Professor and the Madman\, which is to be made into a major film by th
 e distinguished French director Luc Besson\; The Fracture Zone\; A Return 
 to the Balkans\, which recounts his journey from Austria to Turkey during 
 the 1999 Kosovo crisis\; and the best-selling The Map that Changed the Wor
 ld\, about the nineteenth century geologist William Smith.  His book\, Kra
 katoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27\, 1883 was published in  Apri
 l 2003. His latest book\, A Crack in  the Edge of the World: America and t
 he Great California Earthquake of 1906 was published in the fall of 2005 b
 y HarperCollins Publishers. Simon Winchester was made Officer of the Order
  of the British Empire (OBE) by HM The Queen in 2006. He received the hono
 r in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace. Simon Winchester lives on a small fa
 rm in the Berkshires in Massachusetts and in New York City.\n
LOCATION:LMH\, Lady Mitchell Hall
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