Hosted by Kamila Shamsie

‘If war has an opposite, gardens might sometimes be it, and people have found a particular kind of peace in forests, meadows, parks, and gardens.’ In Orwell’s Roses prolific US author, activist and flâneur, Rebecca Solnit reconsiders the work of George Orwell in light of the rosebushes he planted in 1936 in the garden of his cottage in Wallingdon. Through the ultimately hopeful act of gardening, she illuminates ideas of climate crisis, poverty, totalitarianism, feminism, and slavery in the sugar trade, drawing links between Orwell’s works, current societal issues and, through what she calls ‘an activity deeply invested in the future’, shows how nature might save us all. Rebecca is the author of more than twenty books, including Wanderlust, Hope in the Dark, Men Explain Things to Me and Recollections of My Non-Existence, which was longlisted for the 2021 Orwell Prize for Political Writing and shortlisted for the 2021 James Tait Black Award. She will be in conversation with MLF Patron Kamila Shamsie, author of the Women’s Prize winner Home Fire.