Latest news with #SomervilleCollege
Indian Express
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
Khushwant Singh litfest makes Oxford debut with message of peace across borders
The Khushwant Singh Literary Festival (KSLF), now in its seventh London edition, made a stirring debut in Oxford with a strong message of building bridges in times of global unrest. Bringing alive many of Khushwant Singh's enduring passions — heritage and ecological preservation, cross-border ties between India and Pakistan, and the shared poetic legacy of South Asia — the Oxford edition was hosted in collaboration with the University of Oxford and the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development, among other partners. This year's theme, 'Humanity Across Borders,' framed the entire discourse as a tribute to the prolific and iconoclastic author's values. The opening session featured novelist and literary agent Keshava Guha, who discussed his second book, The Tiger's Share, with Somerville College alumna and novelist Francesca Kay. The novel delves into the complexities of contemporary Delhi society, unspooling themes of ecological crisis and familial tensions. Another highlight was the discussion between science writer Matt Ridley and infectious disease epidemiologist Dr Sunetra Gupta on Ridley's latest book, Birds, Sex and Beauty. The two examined recent developments in evolutionary theory with wit and depth, before turning to a contentious debate on the origins of the Covid-19 virus. Ridley, grandson of British architect Edwin Lutyens, spoke of his family's links with Khushwant Singh's father, Sir Sobha Singh, while defending the lab-leak theory—a position Gupta firmly challenged. The Oxford edition also deepened the bond between India and Somerville College, whose historic connection includes early Indian women scholars like Princesses Catherine and Bamba Duleep Singh —daughters of Maharaja Duleep Singh and pioneers in the suffragette movement — as well as Indira Gandhi, who studied at Somerville before becoming India's first woman prime minister.
Times
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Catherine Peters obituary: Somerville English professor
Suavely dressed and with a cut-glass accent and a hint of glamorous intrigue, Catherine Peters stood out among her bluestocking colleagues at Somerville College, Oxford. There was the general impression among students that she had more than one life going on. Two rumours circulated, neither of which was true: that she had written a series of wildly successful children's books — that was the first wife of her second husband, also called Catherine — and, second, that she had been the muse behind the illustrations for The Joy of Sex, published in 1972. That she was an award-winning biographer of 19th-century writers seemed to fit the image that she perhaps took pains to polish — that of a well-connected cosmopolitan. During tutorials she was
The Guardian
07-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Catherine Peters obituary
Though academically brilliant, my mother, Catherine Peters, who has died aged 94, did not go to university until she was 46, when she moved to Oxford with her second husband, the psychiatrist Anthony Storr. She achieved a top first in English literature shortly before her 50th birthday, subsequently becoming for many years a much-loved and respected teacher of English at Somerville College, as well as an acclaimed literary biographer of 19th-century authors. In 1987 she published Thackeray's Universe, followed in 1993 by The King of Inventors: A Life of Wilkie Collins. Her biography Charles Dickens appeared in 1998 and Byron in 2000. The daughter of the literary agent AD Peters and his first wife, Helen MacGregor, Catherine was born in London and brought up by her mother and stepfather, the crime writer Anthony Berkeley Cox (Francis Iles), who, she later told us, sexually abused her from the age of 11. Among her early memories two stood out vividly: a severe governess, with the Dickensian name of Mrs Maskell; and being told, aged four, to address a stranger in the drawing room (AD Peters) as 'Daddy'. 'Daddy?', she wondered, 'what is a daddy?' But he picked her up on his shoulders and danced around the room with her, after which she always liked him. Catherine attended Francis Holland school in London but during the second world war the family moved to Burnham-on-Sea in Somerset, and she went to the local village school, where she enjoyed helping the younger children learn to read. An avid and precocious reader herself, she had read Jane Eyre by the age of eight. She had a brother, Richard, seven years older, who was killed in Burma near the end of the war, and a half-sister, Hilary Peters. She told us her stepfather prevented her from going to university, afraid that the abuse would come to light, and instead, in 1952, she married John Barton and they had four sons. A loving father but serial philanderer, he deserted her in 1961 (they were divorced in 1965). Around 1967 she went to work as a publisher's reader at Jonathan Cape, juggling this with bringing up her children, the second of whom, Thomas, drowned when he was eight. My brothers and I remember her cramming us into her Mini car, luggage precariously strapped to the roof rack, for the long drive and ferry-trip to holidays in Ireland. She married Anthony in 1970. A more or less secret strand throughout her life was her love of poetry, but she had to wait until the age of 84 to see a book of her fine poems in print (Sea Change, 2014). In the introduction to that volume, she traces the genesis of the title poem back to the 'rebirth' she experienced through academic success at Oxford: the 'acceptance of a self that had been in hiding … now inexorably launched on an existence of its own'. An indomitable survivor, she had an uncompromising honesty and critical acuity that could sometimes be unnerving, but these were tempered by great courage, kindness and generosity. Anthony died in 2001. She is survived by her sons Robert, Will and me, six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
