Book of My Life: Viv Groskop in conversation with Abdelkader Benali

About Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.

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Information

Date and time Friday 24 January 2025 23:05 tot 23:01 uur
Location Filmhuis - Studio A
Price SOLD OUT

Writers told us about their favourite book: the book that inspires or touches them, that set their artistic, moral or intellectual compass. In short, the book they would recommend to everyone. Interview: Abdelkader Benali.

Viv Groskop chose as her favorite book Little Women, a coming-of-age novel written by American novelist Louisa May Alcott. The story follows the lives of the four March sisters — Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy — and details their passage from childhood to womanhood. Little Women was adapted succesfully for film several times, recently in 20219 directed by Greta Gerwig featuring a.o. Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson and Timothée Chalamet.

Line-up

Viv Groskop

(United Kingdom) is an award-winning writer, comedian, broadcaster and performance coach. She is the author of the best-selling How to Own the Room: Women and the Art of Brilliant Speaking (2018), Lift As You Climb: Women and the Art of Ambition (2020) and Happy High Status: How to Be Effortlessly Confident (2023). Her podcast How to Own the Room is the biggest public speaking podcast in the world and features interviews with Hillary Clinton, Margaret Atwood, Professor Mary Beard and Julie Andrews. Her other books include The Anna Karenina Fix: Life Lessons from Russian Literature and Au Revoir, Tristesse: Lessons in Happiness from French Literature. She appears regularly on BBC TV and radio and for six years she did a run of sold-out one-woman comedy shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. As a columnist she writes regularly for the Guardian and the Financial Times.
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Abdelkader Benali

(Morocco, 1975) is an award-winning writer, poet, playwright and curator. His 1996 debut, Bruiloft aan zee (Wedding By the Sea), was an immediate success. His second novel, De langverwachte (The Long-awaited) won him the prestigious 2003 Libris Literature Award. Benali's subjects vary, but sports and the migrant who never really feels at home are recurring themes. He has written novels about his great passion of running, about his travels, and about migrants' cultural identity (Bad Boy). His work has been published internationally. Recent books include the novel Paradijsvogel boven Hoge Woerd (Bird of Paradise over Hoge Woerd, 2022) and Het andere verhaal (The Other Story, 2022), an essay about his research into 75 years of modern Moroccan art.
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