Anne Sebba's Blog, page 4
July 4, 2016
Ten Reading group questions for Les Parisiennes
The big wartime histories of France have, until now, been about military battles and defeat focusing on men such as de Gaulle, Hitler and Petain. Yet these names feature only incidentally in my book and the battles are mentioned just in the context of what resulted. To what extent do you think this makes Les […]
April 22, 2016
What is it about 2016 and anniversaries and why being in Jersey makes me reflect?
There’s a huge anniversary at the end of this week and everyone in the literary world and beyond is getting very excited about it. Publishers have spent years preparing books on the great man while scholars are falling over themselves to find something new to say, reinterpreting the will or the plays, discovering a greater […]
January 26, 2016
Good Community Relations
Interfaith Community Relations in Bradford In anticipation of this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day and the importance of respecting other communities, I’ve been thinking about a day I spent recently in Bradford where I witnessed a warm coming together of Muslim and Jewish communities. It’s not what you’d expect from reading an average diet of British […]
November 16, 2015
It’s your choice. Be a journalist!
A short while ago my old college, Kings London, made this film of me, hoping it might encourage some students to decide that journalism was a good career choice. Apparently far too many are opting for careers in the financial sector. I wonder why? Anyway thanks Kings for all the encouragement you gave me! Ive […]
August 20, 2015
Ice Cream for the Soul or Reading for Pleasure
ICE CREAM FOR THE SOUL: ANNE SEBBA ON READING FOR PLEASURE Council member Anne Sebba reflects on reading for pleasure. I fell asleep last night with a book in my hands. There were just 40 pages to go until the end but, after a long and tiring day, much as I was desperate to know […]
June 8, 2015
Are you what you wear?
Luckily the days have long since passed when caring about fashion denoted an airhead. Men and women can now be openly interested in clothes and style and still be considered to have an active brain. Some of the sharpest journalistic brains now report on fashion trends and what that means to the economy as well […]
February 18, 2015
Wallis makes the news in the Jakarta Post!
Download the Anne Sebba interview in the Jakarta Post PDF, 13Mb
February 11, 2015
Women of Unimaginable Courage
Women of Unimaginable Courage I don�t often get a chance to practise curtseying, a skill I learned at ballet school before I hit double figures. But today I had the pleasure of doing a minimalist bob at the same time as I shook hands with Princess Anne who came, she said, wearing two hats, although […]
January 17, 2015
The Verdict of History – Cherchez La Femme
Winston Churchill died on January 24, 1965, fifty years ago next month. Extraordinarily, it was exactly the same date as his father�s death in 1895 and one that Winston himself had predicted for his own death. I was there, like thousands of others, queueing to pay my respects on a freezing January day, a day […]
November 20, 2014
Prison and Fashion – an unlikely link?
As I start to write segments of my book on Paris in wartime (and beyond) it�s hard to get prisons out of my mind � especially Nazi ones. On Monday I interviewed the surviving daughter of a French resistante, one of the bravest imaginable who even tried to escape from Ravensbruck, possibly the only [...]
