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.
- Ways into magic realism
Course start date: Sat 28 Jan 2023Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Kate WilkinsonA baby’s spiteful ghost knocks over boiling pans; a ten-year-old boy sees into hearts and minds; a refugee opens a door into another country… In magical realist fiction, real-world events take unexpected turns into the fabulous and fantastical, asking us to think again about what we know.
On this course we’ll read a selection of magical realist writing, including work by Salman Rushdie, Toni Morrison and Mohsin Hamid, as an introduction to this fascinating genre.Full fee £59.00 Senior fee £47.00 Concession £38.00 - What's the Big Idea?: classic and contemporary short storiesCourse start date: Mon 13 Feb 2023
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Richard NilandRead and discuss celebrated short stories over six weeks – discuss and explore what we understand might be the
writers’ intentions, and what it means for us as readers – which can be quite different. Join us in sharing feelings
about, and reactions to, a selection of classic and contemporary short stories and how they withstand the shifting context of readers, and time.Full fee £139.00 Senior fee £111.00 Concession £90.00 - Borderlines of Madness in 19th century fictionCourse start date: Sat 18 Mar 2023
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Sarah WiseWe will explore various themes related to insanity and altered states of consciousness by examining a number of 19th-century works of fiction. Novelists and poets often had the greatest insights into the workings of the mind, and many Victorian psychiatrists cited works of fiction in their case studies. Among the authors we will cover are Charlotte Bronte, Edgar Allan Poe, Wilkie Collins, Gogol, Herman Melville and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.Full fee £69.00 Senior fee £55.00 Concession £45.00 - 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, Zadie Smith 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 - Get together and readCourse start date: Thu 19 Jan 2023 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Claire AllenEnjoy talking with other people about the things you have read? Want to share great stories, poems and drama? Come along and join the conversation. The group is led by a shared reading practitioner trained by The Reader Organisation.Full fee £99.00 Senior fee £79.00 Concession £50.00 - London ‘lowlife’ in fiction: 1889-1907Course start date: Fri 20 Jan 2023
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Sarah WiseWe will explore the themes of poverty, politics, gender and ethnicity in London at the end of the 19th century/start of the 20th century through the eyes of writers of fiction, but also through the testimony of their non-fiction contemporaries – social investigators, government officials, journalists and philanthropists.Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £143.00 Concession £116.00
Can't see a course you want?
Add this category to your waiting list to set up alerts and we will update you when new courses are released online.
Add me to waiting list