In Conversation with Sohaila Abdulali and Winnie M Li
Monday, 8 July, 6:30-8:30pm
Waterstones Tottenham Court Road
19-21 Tottenham Court Road
London W1T 1BJ
Ticket £7 / Book and ticket £12
You can book your tickets here: https://www.waterstones.com/events/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-rape-an-evening-with-sohaila-abdulali/london-tottenham-court-road
Or see our Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/449294062538110/
Drawing on three decades of grappling with the issue personally and professionally, and on her work with hundreds of other survivors, What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape explores consent, desire, redemption, revenge and how rape is and should be discussed by society. Sohaila also explores what we don’t say, and asks pertinent questions about who gets raped and who rapes, about consent and desire, about redemption and revenge, and about how we raise our sons. Most importantly, she asks: does rape always have to be a life-defining event, or is it possible to recover joy?
Sohaila Abdulali is a journalist and writer who was born in Mumbai and now lives in New York. Her book What We Talk About When We talk About Rape has been an international bestseller and she has appeared at literary festivals and events around the world. In the 1980s, Sohaila was the first Indian rape survivor to speak out in the media about her experience. Gang-raped as a teenager in Mumbai and indignant at the deafening silence on the issue in India, she wrote an article for a women’s magazine questioning how we perceive rape and rape victims. Thirty years later, she saw the story go viral in the wake of the fatal 2012 Delhi rape and the global outcry that followed.
Sohaila will be joined in conversation by Clear Lines Co-Founder Winnie M Li, who chose to write fiction to address her real-life stranger rape in her debut Dark Chapter. It won The Guardian’s Not The Booker Prize and has been translated into ten languages. She has an honorary doctorate from the National University of Ireland in recognition of her writing and activism.
Together, Sohaila and Winnie will discuss the choices they’ve made both as writers and as survivors in order to prompt a more productive public conversation about rape and sexual assault.
Clear Lines is the UK’s first-ever festival dedicated to addressing sexual assault, abuse, and consent through the arts and discussion. It seeks to replace shame and silence with insight, understanding, and community. Since its founding, Clear Lines has become a grassroots success, entirely volunteer-run, yet attracting hundreds of participants. Thus far, it has run two multi-day festivals in 2015 and 2017 and a series of regular events in London.
HERitage stall this Saturday 29th January at St Cuthbert's hall, Amble. Come along, see you there