Money Talks

This year sees the 25th anniversary of the publication of Martin Amis's novel Money. Birkbeck is hosting a one-day symposium on Saturday 30 May to mark its influential presence in the literary landscape.

Dr Joe Brooker from the School of English, who is organising the symposium, said: "The anniversary is a good opportunity to give this remarkable book the fuller attention that it has always merited. It also coincides with the thirtieth anniversary of Margaret Thatcher's first election victory and the book is arguably the definitive novel of Thatcherism from the 1980s."

Money tells the story of Jonathan Self, a successful commercials director who is invited to New York in order to shoot his first film. Once there he quickly develops a destructive appetite for all of the vices the Big Apple can offer. Amis's portrait of life in the fast lane has been described as forming 'an audacious and frightening picture of Reagan's America and Thatcher's England.'

Speakers at the symposium include established authorities and former graduates who have been chosen specifically to provide fresh and strong work on the text.

Free, Sat 30 May, 10.30-6pm, Malet Street 153.

Contact j.brooker@bbk.ac.uk