Event overview
A Memoir by Michael Rosen: So They Call You Pisher!
“If you didn’t know whether to risk doing something, what’s the worst that could happen? ‘So they call you pisher!’”
In this humorous and moving memoir, Michael Rosen recalls the first twenty-three years of his life. Born in the North London suburbs, his parents, Harold and Connie, both teachers, first met as teenage Communists in the 1930s Jewish East End. The family home was filled with stories of relatives in London, the United States and France and of those who had disappeared in Europe.
Unlike the children around them, Rosen and his brother Brian grew up dreaming of a socialist revolution; Party meetings were held in the front room, summers were for communist camping holidays, till it all changed after a trip to East Germany, when in 1957 his parents decided to leave “the Party.” Michael followed his own journey of radical self-discovery: running away to the Aldermaston March to ban the bomb, writing and performing in experimental political theatre, getting arrested during the 1968 movements.
“About a year before I was born, my brother died; he was not yet two. I don’t know the exact dates of his birth or the death. They were never marked or mentioned in our house or anywhere else. There was no memorial for him. There were no framed photos of him in our house. He was invisible. My arrival into the world must have been a mixture of delight and dread. Delight that I had come along to fill up the gap left by the one before. Dread that I could go too... I must have been the replacement child. Perhaps I was also a cough waiting to happen. Every snuffle, every slight rasp of a breath must have given them reason to worry.” Michael Rosen
Michael Rosen is the author of over 140 books of poetry, stories and politics. He was the Children's Laureate between 2007-9 and is currently the professor of Children's Literature at Goldsmiths University. . He has won numerous international awards for his work in literature. He presents Word of Mouth on BBC Radio 4.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 29 Nov 2017 | 5:00pm - 6:30pm |
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