THIRD PARTY EVENT: Viv Groskop in conversation with Sofi Oksanen, Robert Service and Elif Shafak

"Politics Versus the Personal: Totalitarianism Stamps out Love"

Presented by Borealis Theatre and the Estonian Embassy.

In conjunction with the UK theatre premiere of Purge by Sofi Oksanen at the Arcola Theatre, 22nd February – 24th March, Viv Groskop will lead a dynamic discussion about politics, love and oppression with three influential writers.

Viv Groskop, a British journalist, literary critic and broadcaster. She writes for the Guardian and Observer and appears regularly on Sky News and BBC Radio 4. A contributor to Russian Vogue for ten years, she speaks Russian fluently and her interview subjects include Alexander Litvinenko’s widow Marina, Beslan survivor Fatima Dzgoeva and novelist Ludmilla Petrushevskaya.

Sofi Oksanen, recognised as a potential Nobel prize-winner by the Swedish press, she is an award winning Finnish-Estonian writer actively involved in the public debate in Finland. Her novel Purge is an international best seller and was Sunday Times book of the year 2010. The book was building on the play Purge commissioned by the Finnish National theatre in 2007.

Robert Service, a fellow of the British Academy and of St Antony’s College, Oxford, he has written extensively on the history of Soviet Russia. His many books include the highly acclaimed Lenin: A Biography, Russia: Experiment with a People, Stalin: A Biography and Trotsky: A Biography winner of the Duff Cooper Prize.

Elif Shafak, a truly international writer she blends East and West, feminism and tradition, the local and the global, Sufism and rationalism, creating one of today’s most unique voices in literature. Among her many books you’ll find The Bastard of Istanbul and The Forty Rules of Love: A Novel of Rumi.