The W.G. Sebald Lecture 2024: Rowan Williams

This event took place on 2 December 2024. The information below is correct as of the publication date. The Sebald Lecture is given annually on an aspect of literature in translation and is named after W.G. Sebald. In its 30th anniversary year, the lecture is given by Rowan Williams, exploring the translation of poetry. Presented by the British Centre for Literary Translation (BCLT) at the University of East Anglia, in association with the British Library. Rowan Williams is Honorary Professor of Contemporary Christian Thought at the University of Cambridge. Dr Williams spent his early career as an academic theologian at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, before he was elected Bishop of Monmouth and Archbishop of Wales. He served as the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury for a decade from 2002; on stepping down he was elevated to the peerage as Baron Williams of Oystermouth. In 2013 he was elected Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, from which he retired in 2020. He has published on a wide range of theological, historical and political themes. His first book was a translation from French; he has also co-translated a multi-volume theological work from German, and poetry from Russian and Welsh, including most recently The Book of Taliesin for Penguin Classics (2019, with Gwyneth Lewis). He has published several poetry collections, and his Collected Poems were published by Carcanet in 2021. The Sebald Lecture is given annually on an aspect of literature in translation and is named after W.G. Sebald, who set up BCLT in 1989. ‘Max’ was a German writer who opted to live in the UK and continue writing in German. His novels and essays include The Rings of Saturn, Austerlitz and On the Natural History of Destruction, and they established him as a leading writer of the 20th century.