Fiction Literature Courses
Study online & in London
From Dante to DeLillo, revisit classic literature texts and enjoy discovering new writers and adaptations plus share your views in lively classroom discussions.
Courses available both in-person and online
We offer a range of courses allowing you to choose between online and in-person learning. All our courses are live, interactive, and taught by expert tutors. No matter how you prefer to learn, you’ll receive the same great City Lit experience. See our guide to online learning for more information about accessing our live online courses.
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- The Golden Age of the British Short Story 1890-1914Course start date: Mon 19 Sep 2022
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Julian BirkettThe years 1890 to 1914 were a golden age for British writers of short stories. As the country moved from Victorian certainties to an unknown, possibly exciting, possibly frightening future, writers found the short story form perfectly suited to their concerns. The roll call is an impressive one: from Kipling, Hardy, HG Wells and Conan Doyle through Chesterton and Conrad to Katherine Mansfield and DH Lawrence.Full fee £219.00 Senior fee £175.00 Concession £142.00 - American Gothic: the darker side of fictionCourse start date: Tue 20 Sep 2022
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Julian BirkettExplore and discuss the work of great 19th and 20th century writers such as Hawthorne. Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson and Flannery O’Connor – and learn about the dark streak that runs through so much of the best American literature.Full fee £219.00 Senior fee £175.00 Concession £142.00 - Stories from EuropeCourse start date: Wed 21 Sep 2022
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Aamer HusseinFreshly translated or newly rediscovered gems of European writing from the second half of the 20th century include Arturo’s Island by Elsa Morante (Italy), The Last and the First by Nina Berberova (Russia), The Inseparables by Simone de Beauvoir (France), Train was on Time by Heinrich Boll (Germany), Forty Lost Years by Rosa Maria Arquimbau (Catalonia/Spain) and The Man From London by Simenon (Belgium).Full fee £219.00 Senior fee £175.00 Concession £142.00 - Great American StoriesCourse start date: Mon 9 Jan 2023
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Julian BirkettThe short story is America’s outstanding literary form. The explosion of magazines in the 19th century led to a huge market in stories “to be taken down with a gulp.” Many of its greatest writers specialised in the form – including Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Carver, James Baldwin, John Cheever, William Faulkner and Lorrie Moore – and made it a vivid barometer of American life.Full fee £219.00 Senior fee £175.00 Concession £142.00 - Families, feuds and fictionsCourse start date: Tue 10 Jan 2023
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Julian Birkett“When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished.” - Polish Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz; “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” - Leo Tolstoy
Unsurprisingly, novelists have always gravitated towards the dramatic potential of dysfunctional families, , and some of the finest novels of modern times have explored the tensions, disappointments (even occasional joys) of family life.Full fee £219.00 Senior fee £175.00 Concession £142.00 - South Asian fictionsCourse start date: Wed 11 Jan 2023
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Aamer HusseinExplore contemporary and historical stories about one of the most creatively fertile regions of the world, written in English by novelists with a strong British connection. Includes: A God in Every Stone by Kamila Shamsie (Pakistan), The Book of Golden Leaves by Mirza Waheed Kashmir), Friend of my Youth by Amit Chaudhuri (India), How To Get Filthy Rich in Modern Asia by Mohsin Hamid (Pakistan), and Sunlight on a Broken Column by Attia Hosain (India).Full fee £219.00 Senior fee £175.00 Concession £142.00 - Writing Modern Britain: 1990-2020Course start date: Tue 25 Apr 2023
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Julian BirkettBritish society is changing in profound, exciting, and sometimes unsettling ways - and a new generation of writers have been exploring, dramatizing and reflecting on it, focusing on shifts in power, money, race, sex and the coming of globalisation. We’ll be reading novels and stories by some of the best of these writers, including Hanif Kureishi, Kamila Shamsie and others.Full fee £219.00 Senior fee £175.00 Concession £142.00 - Hidden Treasures: rediscovered classicsCourse start date: Wed 26 Apr 2023
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Aamer HusseinJoin us to read and discuss freshly translated or newly rediscovered gems of international writing from the second half of the 20th century, including ‘After Midnight’ by Irmgard Keun (1937, Germany) and ‘All our Yesterdays' by Natalia Ginzburg (1952, Italy).Full fee £219.00 Senior fee £175.00 Concession £142.00
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