Goldsmiths Writers' Centre presents Camilla Balshaw and Miranda Doyle

Author Camilla Balshaw in conversation with Miranda Doyle about her new memoir, NAMED

What’s in a name? Everything we carry, and everything we are.

Our names are a shadow we carry around with us. They are part of who we are. Our names are a marker of our self-identity and our sense of self. Our names have the power to shock. They have the power to heal, and they have the power to trigger conversations around race, class, social mobility and belonging. But what is a name? What do our names tell us about ourselves? And why do they matter?

Named is a fascinating exploration of names, global naming conventions and identity politics woven into a moving, personal narrative about the finding of family and self. At the intersection of memoir and social and cultural history it is a truly fascinating book about the seemingly ordinary and every day.

The author’s own narrative about her estrangement from her Nigerian father, the grapples with her Jamaican mother and her journey towards identity is woven through the chapters making it an engaging and intimate investigation of what makes us who we are.

‘Gutsy, entertaining and thought-provoking…A marvellous book.’ Diana Evans

Camilla Balshaw holds an MA in Creative & Life Writing from Goldsmiths. She writes fiction and nonfiction, and her work has been published in The Guardian and The Observer. In 2020, she was longlisted for the Fish Prize and shortlisted for Penguin Random House WriteNow. She is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Nottingham in the Institute for Name Studies.

Miranda Doyle is author of A Book of Untruths, Faber & Faber (2017). Today she writes of our science wars, because 'even Victor Orbán is too intelligent to gut scientific research' (LRB Werner-Müller 4.12.25). Her essays have been included as part of Katy Massey’s Who Are We Now, True Stories and the Arts Council Funded Even You Song, which was composed by Cheryl Frances-Hoad, with artist Bettina Starke, and poet Lucy Sheerman. Teaching Memoir and Life Writing for the Faber Academy and Arvon she has also delivered storytelling workshops for both Sheffield’s Off the Shelf and the Lavenham Literary Festivals.

This event is free to attend and open to all.

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