{"id":129,"date":"2013-10-16T10:44:43","date_gmt":"2013-10-16T09:44:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/alumni\/?p=129"},"modified":"2014-04-02T15:27:22","modified_gmt":"2014-04-02T14:27:22","slug":"best-selling-author-inspires-students-at-school-of-english-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/2013\/10\/16\/best-selling-author-inspires-students-at-school-of-english-event\/","title":{"rendered":"Best-selling author inspires students at School of English event"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Kent alumnus and twice-Booker nominated novelist David Mitchell (D87) returned to the School of English to discuss his work with current students.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/files\/2013\/10\/David-Mitchell-with-students.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"300\" height=\"293\" class=\" wp-image-130 alignleft\" alt=\"David Mitchell\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/files\/2013\/10\/David-Mitchell-with-students-300x293.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/files\/2013\/10\/David-Mitchell-with-students-300x293.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/files\/2013\/10\/David-Mitchell-with-students-1024x1003.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/files\/2013\/10\/David-Mitchell-with-students-624x611.jpg 624w, https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/files\/2013\/10\/David-Mitchell-with-students.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>David read excerpts from his unpublished works and enjoyed a lively question and answer session at the event, where he was joined by second and third year students. He was introduced by Professor Jan Montefiore, Professor of English and American Literature, who taught David during his years at Kent and has remained a life-long friend.<\/p>\n<p>During his visit, David was also interviewed by current English Literature student Emma Shelton, who is features editor of student newspaper <i>Inquire. <\/i>He reminisced about his experiences at Kent and spoke about returning to the University. He said:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cFor a long time I had a \u2018you shouldn\u2019t go back\u2019 kind of philosophy about my home town. Then middle-age comes knocking on the door, and you\u2019re actually rather curious. It\u2019s good to go back and see where you\u2019re from. There\u2019s a sense of closing a circle.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>You can read the full interview <a href=\"www.inquirelive.co.uk\/features\/article-3712\/interview-with-kent-alumni-author-david-mitchell\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Having studied English and American Literature at Kent from 1987 until 1990, David published his first novel, <i>Ghostwritten<\/i>, in 1999. His most famous and acclaimed work is <i>Cloud Atlas, <\/i>which is<i> <\/i>now<i> <\/i>a major film. He won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the South Bank Show Literature Prize and is currently working on his sixth novel.<\/p>\n<p>His other books include <i>Black Swan Green<\/i> (2006), which was selected as one of the 10 Best Books of the Year by <i>Time<\/i> magazine, and <i>The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet <\/i>(2010).<\/p>\n<p>David was awarded an honorary degree by Kent in 2006.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kent alumnus and twice-Booker nominated novelist David Mitchell (D87) returned to the School of English to discuss his work with current students. David read excerpts &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/2013\/10\/16\/best-selling-author-inspires-students-at-school-of-english-event\/\">Read&nbsp;more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34788,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[118124],"tags":[807,74449],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34788"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":348,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions\/348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}