The Folio Academy Sessions, The Authenticity Paradox

Authenticity in storytelling is highly prized: as readers we like to feel we’re being given special access to the truth. But does this place an unfair burden on those writers who are also expected to speak on behalf of the cultural groups they’re seen to represent? Is there an implicit pressure for them to write in particular voices, on particular subjects and in particular genres? Examining the paradox of authenticity, the panel includes: author Catherine O’Flynn - whose What Was Lost won the Costa First Novel Prize - journalist, memoirist, and Times columnist Sathnam Sanghera, Trinidadian writer and performer Roger Robinson, and journalist and human rights development worker Afua Hirsch.