You are warmly invited to this seminar on the contemporary relationship between truth and fiction. How is the writing of history shaped by the art of the novelist? Can the historical novel tell the truth about the past better than history? Jonathan Freedland and Jesse Norman, two writers working between history and fiction, will discuss these questions in conversation with Clare Bucknell.

Jonathan Freedland is a columnist for The Guardian and an award-winning writer both of non-fiction and fiction, the latter under the pseudonym Sam Bourne. His latest book, The Escape Artist, was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize in 2022.

Jesse Norman MP is a biographer of Edmund Burke and Adam Smith, and a Fellow of All Souls College. His latest book, a historical novel called The Winding Stair, won a Parliamentary Book Award in 2023.