Leslie Forbes

Born in Canada, Leslie came to London in 1977. Here she worked as an artist, journalist and writer of BBC radio documentaries - and then a love affair with India, art and science led to her write the internationally acclaimed thriller, Bombay Ice. Its successor, Fish, Blood & Bone (long-listed for the Orange prize 2001), about a Calcutta botanical artist, featured characters based on artists and scientists Forbes met after winning the Wellcome Trust SciArt award. Her third novel Waking Raphael was inspired by his painting ‘The Mute Woman’, but especially by Leslie’s meeting with a living mute, the victim of torture during WWII.

In 2005, having developed a form of eplipsy that affects the language processing part of her brain, Leslie collaborated with artist Oona Grimes on the book Abs nces. Since 2003 the author’s writing has been inspired by torture survivors she ‘mentors’ - and is mentored by.

reading with Leslie:

Nasrin Parvaz

(who will be reading her essay ‘War and Restoration’)

Nasrin Parvaz was born in 1958 in Tehran. At the age of 20 she came to the UK to study. The following year, revolution broke out in Iran and she returned for what she thought would be a brief visit to see her family. Little did she realise it would be 15 years before she saw Britain again - as an exile. In post-revolutionary Iran she was active in women's rights and civil rights, which led to her arrest in 1982.  Tortured and sentenced to execution, Nasrin was saved by her father’s intervention. He got her sentence commuted to eight years’ imprisonment.On release, Nasrin continued to see people who were fighting for their civil rights and she was constantly followed by the Islamic guards. When some of her friends were arrested again, she knew Iran was no longer safe and in 1993 she fled to the UK, where she was granted asylum.

She continues to fight for human rights and to write (in English and Farsi) about her life here and in Iran. Her memoir was published in Farsi (2002), and in Italian (2006). In 2008 she published a novel about Iran’s 1988 massacre of prisoners, and finished a book in English based on her memoir. Now she is looking for a publisher! http://nasrinparvaz.com/

The event
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Introduction:
Tony Benn

Singers
Rosemary Ashe
Sally Burgess
Charlie Dore
Johnnie Fiori
Fiona MacDonald
The Manchester
Lesbian & Gay Chorus
Nasrin Parvaz
Annette Reis-Dunne
Andrea Roberts
Peter Straker

Writers
Stella Duffy
Leslie Forbes
David Harsent
Ben Mellor
Shelley Silas
Lemn Sissay

Actors
Janie Dee
Sam Ellis
John Guerrasio
Loveday Smith
Will Strange
Two’s Company
Rupert Wickham
Dan Willis
Chris and Olly

Musicians
Julian Littman (MD)
Neal Thornton

Directors
London: Caroline Clegg
Nepal: Hazel Roy

Special Guests
Mende Nazer
Julie Nicholson


Trafalgar Studios



www.feelgoodtheatre.co.uk

Event sponsors & supporters:
The Stage Door Foundation
Dave Kirkwood Studio
J. S. Dutton

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