Please join Stanford’s Robert Pogue Harrison, Maria Florence Massucco, and Tobias Wolff, for a webinar discussion of Dorothy Strachey’s 1949 novel, Olivia.The event will take place 5:00-6:30 p.m. (PST) on Wednesday, October 13. Given the ongoing COVID situation, this will be a virtual event.
Stanford’s Prof. Robert Harrison, an acclaimed author and director of Another Look, will lead the discussion, joined by the eminent novelist Tobias Wolff, founding director of Another Look and a National Medal of Arts winner. Massucco, a PhD candidate in Italian Studies who specializes in the 20th century novel, will round out the panel.
André Gide called Olivia“a little masterpiece,” and we think you’ll agree. The story traces the intense emotional currents among the girls and teachers in a finishing school outside Paris. Olivia, a 16-year-old English girl, finds herself falling under the spell of the charismatic Mademoiselle Julie, a founder of the school. The Times (London) praised Olivia’s “strange combination of strength and delicacy” and the Wall Street Journal noted that the book is “extravagantly French in its sensibilities.”
Dorothy Strachey and her famous brother, the writer Lytton Strachey, were prominent in the Bloomsbury group. Olivia is her only novel.
The book is available through Amazon (also on Kindle), as well as Stanford Bookstore (650-329-1217) Kepler’s in Menlo Park (650-324-4321), and Bell’s Books in Palo Alto (650-323-7822). Secondhand copies are also available on Abebooks as well. If all else fails, you can order directly from Penguin at 800-793-2665, but allow for delivery time and shipping costs.
Like all our events, this webinar is free and open to the public, but please register on the link below. See you on Zoom!
https://stanford.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_jIXoLGUWTKeS6HCyhVaibw
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