Date: 20.2.2014
Author and academic Ros Barber visited the University recently, meeting with Creative Writing English students to discuss her recent book 'The Marlowe Papers'.
Published by St Martins Press in 2013 the book was awarded the Desmond Elliott Prize, jointly awarded the Author’s Club Best First Novel Award, and long-listed for the Women’s Prize (formerly the Orange Prize for fiction). In 2011, pre-publication, it was joint winner of the Annual Calvin & Rose G Hoffmann Prize 2011 for a distinguished work on Christopher Marlowe.
'The Marlow Papers' is decribed as having the grip of a thriller and the emotional force of a sonnet. Written in verse, it gives voice to a man who was brilliant, passionate and mercurial. A cobbler's son who counted nobles among his friends, a spy in the Queen's service, a fickle lover and a declared religious sceptic, he was always courting trouble.
Memoir, love letter, confession, settling of accounts and a cry for recognition as the creator of some of the most sublime works in the English language, The Marlowe Papers brings Christopher Marlowe and his era to vivid life.
Celebrated novelist Faye Weldon described the book as "terrifically accomplished, and enjoyable. It restores one's faith in English fiction"
Ros is also author of a number of academic articles on Christopher Marlowe, and on the Shakespeare Authorship Question. She is a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Sussex, lecturer on the MA in Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London, and Director of Research at the Shakespearean Authorship Trust.
