 | |  Book the last tickets to hear Orlando Figes speaking on Monday 3 December. Orlando Figes, one of the leading historians of twentieth-century Russia, will be speaking about Just Send Me Word, published earlier this year. The book is based on 1,246 letters smuggled in and out of the Pechora Labour Camp between 1946 and 1955, and tells the extraordinary story of Lev Mishchenko, a prisoner in the camp, and Svetlana Ivanova, his girlfriend in Moscow. In a talk illustrated with slides and film, Figes describes how he discovered and came to work with the largest know collection of private correspondence from the Gulag, and how he met the authors of the letters at the end of their lives. Figes will speak at 7pm in the Kenneth Clark Lecture Theatre, Somerset House, London WC2R 1LA.   | |
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| |  | |  There are still tickets available to hear Bidisha speaking on Iris Murdoch, as the final installment of the series of events we are running with the National Portrait Gallery this season. Writer, critic and broadcaster Bidisha celebrates novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch, whose portrait by Tom Phillips conveys her extraordinary presence and outward serenity. Bidisha argues that Murdoch, whose work combines morality with satire, and low passion with high yearning, is one of the most significant novelists since the second world war. RSL Members and Fellows can purchase tickets for the discounted price of £4 from the National Portrait Gallery online or by calling 020 7306 0055. |