Connecting conversation: Writer Howard Jacobson in conversation with Valerie Sinason

Howard Jacobson, often referred to as the ‘English Philip Roth’, although he prefers to think of himself as the ‘Jewish Jane Austen’, will explore with psychoanalyst Valerie Sinason his views on the creative process of writing, his feelings about his work and how he sees the role of cultural identity.

Howard Jacobson was born in Manchester, brought up in Prestwich and was educated at Stand Grammar School in Whitefield and Downing College, Cambridge, where he studied under F. R. Leavis. He lectured for three years at the University of Sydney before returning to teach at Selwyn College, Cambridge. His novels include The Mighty Walzer (winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize), Kalooki Nights (longlisted for the Man Booker Prize) and, most recently, the highly acclaimed The Act of Love.

Valerie Sinason is a poet, child psychotherapist and adult psychoanalyst specialising in trauma and disability. Her most recent edited works are Attachment, Trauma and Multiplicity: Working with Dissociative Identity Disorder and poetry book Night-shift. She is Director of the Clinic for Dissociative Studies, Honorary Consultant Psychotherapist of the Cape Town Child Guidance Clinic and President of the Institute for Psychotherapy and Disability.