S P E A K E R S

• Quentin Falk
  • Edits the BAFTA magazine Academy and was for many years the film critic of The Sunday Mirror. He is the author of Travels in Greeneland: The complete guide to the cinema of Graham Greene and of a recent book on Alfred Hitchcock, and he has been a regular contributor at previous Graham Greene Festivals.
• Sebastian Peake
  • is the son of Mervyn Peake, author of the Gormenghast trilogy, writer of children's books and nonsense verse, poet, painter, war artist and illustrator. Sebastian has spoken widely on his father, written the biography A Child of Bliss and co-written the recently-published Mervyn Peake: The Man and his Art. He has been in the wine trade all his life, and published his own poetry.
• Dr Andrew Biswell
  • is the author of the prize-winning biography The Real Life of Anthony Burgess, and his articles on Graham Greene have appeared in journals in the UK and the USA. He is the Academic Director of the Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University.
• Rupert, Graf Strachwitz
  • is the elder child of Barbara Greene and German diplomat Rudolf Strachwitz. He is the director of the Maecenata Institute for Philanthropy and Civil Society at Humboldt University, Berlin, and managing director of the consultancy Maecenata Management. He has written extensively on civil society, civic engagement, and foundations.
• Sebastian Godwin
  • graduated from Cambridge University in 2001 and studied film direction at the Polish National Film School in Lodz, where he was a Leverhulme Scholar. The End of the Party is his third and last short film at the School, and it was voted Best Student Film at the Rome Independent Film Festival.
• Professor Neil Sinyard
  • was for five years deputy film critic of The Sunday Telegraph. He has taught for many years at the University of Hull, where he is now Professor of Film Studies, and has written over twenty books on film and literature, including Graham Greene: A Literary Life. He has been a regular and very popular contributor to Graham Greene Festivals.
• Professor Robert Davis
  • has taught at five American universities, at four universities outside America, and has lectured extensively in Europe. His aim now is to share his enthusiasms by writing and travelling. He spoke at the 2003 Graham Greene Festival and was involved in the Evelyn Waugh Centenary of that year.
• Ramon Rami Porta
  • is a thoracic surgeon in Spain, a Greene enthusiast and a regular Greene Festival-goer who has contributed to previous festivals.
• Dr Tamas F Molnar
  • is a thoracic surgeon from Pécs in Hungary, with a passion for books, especially English literature, and especially Graham Greene's writing.
• László Róbert
  • is a former Hungarian journalist and television man who met Graham Greene on several occasions and knew him for twenty years. He is the author of several books, including The Greene Connection (A Greene-Kapcsolat).
• William Boyd
  • was born in Ghana and brought up there and in Nigeria. His varied career has included a spell as lecturer in English at Oxford, and as film critic; he has been a prolific scriptwriter, and he wrote and directed the film The Trench. Some of his many novels, beginning with A Good Man in Africa, have been set in Africa; his latest best-selling novel, Restless, won the 2006 Costa Novel Award.
• Professor Chris Woodhead
  • is a former schoolteacher of English who was for several years the Chief Inspector of Schools. He has written columns for The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times, and he is the author of Class Wars. He is currently Professor of Education at the University of Buckingham.
• David Pearce
  • is well known to Greene Festival-goers. For many years a teacher at Berkhamsted School, he was the first Chairman of the Graham Greene Birthplace Trust, and for four very successful years was festival Director.
• Professor Richard Greene
  • is a Professor of English at the University of Toronto. He has edited the works of Mary Leapor and written a study of her in the context of 18th century women's poetry. He has also edited selected letters of Edith Sitwell. Having spoken at the Centenary Greene Festival in 2004, he publishes this year Graham Greene: a Life in Letters.
• Sir Clement Freud
  • has had a varied career. A former chef and restaurant owner, he has been a Liberal M.P. and university rector. He is a strong horse-racing enthusiast, has had various newspaper and magazine columns, and his extensive career as a broadcaster has included forty years as a panellist on Radio 4's Just a Minute. His books include the autobiography Freud Ego.
• Mike Hill
  • is a former schoolteacher whose inveterate attendance at Graham Greene Festivals led to his becoming festival director for three years.