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Join 5x15 for an online event with the acclaimed historian Sarah Churchwell in conversation with Today presenter Justin Webb to delve into American myth-making and denialism past and present. In THE WRATH TO COME: Gone with the Wind and the Lies America Tells, historian Sarah Churchwell uses one of the most enduringly popular stories of all time as a lens through which to examine the divisions ripping apart the United States today. Sarah will be joined in conversation by Justin Webb, the longest serving presenter of BBC Radio 4's flagship news and current affairs programme Today. For eight years, Webb was the BBC’s chief correspondent in Washington DC, and he won the Political Journalist of the Year award for his coverage of the Obama presidential campaign. Gone with the Wind was an instant bestseller when it was published in 1936; its film version became the most successful Hollywood film of all time. Today the story's racism is again a subject of controversy, but it was just as controversial in the 1930s, foreshadowing today's debates over race and American fascism. Separating fact from fiction, Churchwell shows how histories of myth-making have informed America's racial and gender politics, the controversies over Confederate statues, the resurgence of white nationalism, the Black Lives Matter movement, the enduring power of the American Dream, and the violence of Trumpism. Charting an extraordinary journey through 160 years of American denialism, Churchwell shows what happens when we do violence to history, as collective denial turns fictions into lies, and lies into a vicious reality. Praise for The Wrath To Come: 'At times the narrative took my breath away' Philippe Sands 'Eye-opening and at times jaw-dropping' Peter Frankopan 'One of the must-reads of the year' Suzannah Lipscomb 'Brilliant and provocative' Gavin Esler Sarah Churchwell is Professorial Fellow in American Literature and Chair of Public Understanding of the Humanities at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. She is the author of Behold, America: A History of America First and the American Dream and Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and The Invention of The Great Gatsby. She was co-winner of the 2015 Eccles British Library Writer's Award and long-listed for the 2021 Orwell Prize for Journalism. Justin Webb is the longest serving presenter of BBC Radio 4's flagship news and current affairs programme Today. He joined the BBC in 1984 as a trainee, and has reported from around the world, as a war correspondent in the Gulf and in Bosnia, on the break-up of the former Soviet Union and the first democratic elections in South Africa. He was Europe Correspondent when the Euro was introduced, and for eight years he was the chief correspondent in Washington DC. He's a regular columnist in The Times and for the Unherd website. His most recent book is The Gift of a Radio, a memoir of his 70s childhood. 5x15 brings together outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Geoff Dyer is a ‘national treasure’ (Zadie Smith): the award-winning author of ten non-fiction books and four novels, including Out of Sheer Rage and Yoga for People Who Can’t be Bothered to Do It, which have been translated into 24 languages worldwide. He is currently Writer in Residence at the University of Southern California. In THE LAST DAYS OF ROGER FEDERER, he turns his attention to last things - the last days and last achievements of writers, painters, athletes and musicians from J.W Turner to Bob Dylan to Roger Federer himself. Could it be that our deepest desire is for it all to be over? With thanks for your support for 5x15. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Jackie Morris is an author and illustrator. The Lost Words, which she wrote with Robert Macfarlane, won the 2019 Kate Greenaway Medal for distinguished illustration, and she was nominated for the same award in 2021 for The Unwinding, her ‘book for dreamers’. FEATHER, LEAF, BARK & STONE is a pillow book of more than 100 short poems and meditations, typed onto gold leaf, leaves, bark and feathers. Written in the wake of Morris’s father’s death, it grew out of her grief, and was guided by her deep intimacy with the natural world. The result is an exquisite book full of the light and wind of the Pembrokeshire coast where it was crafted: poetry re-imagined by a visual artist. With thanks for your support for 5x15. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Jonathan Freedland is an award-winning Guardian columnist, presenter of BBC Radio Four’s The Long View, and a multi-million selling thriller author under the name Sam Bourne. His new book, THE ESCAPE ARTIST, marks a return to non-fiction, telling the story of Rudolf Vrba, ‘the man who broke out of Auschwitz to warn the world’. Vrba’s testimony would reach Roosevelt, Churchill and the pope, and eventually save over 200,000 lives, but the escape from Auschwitz was not his last. After the war, he kept running - from his past, from his home country, from his adopted country, even from his own name. ‘A work of the highest quality about an astonishing man. It is gripping from start to finish, searingly, shocking, revelatory and deeply moving.’ – Jonathan Dimbleby With thanks for your support for 5x15. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Leila Mottley has been hailed as ‘the voice of a generation’. An acclaimed youth poet, her first novel, NIGHTCRAWLING, was bought in a thirteen-way auction in the States, a nine-way auction in the UK and has already sold into eight languages. Inspired by a true scandal underpinning the police department in Oakland, California, Mottley’s home town, it is an unforgettable novel about young people navigating the darkest corners of an adult world, told with a humanity that is at once agonising and utterly mesmerising. With thanks for your support for 5x15. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Philosopher Amia Srinivasan, bestselling author of The Right to Sex, in conversation with the author of Three Women, Lisa Taddeo. '[This] ambitious, magisterial work stands out in the ongoing tide of dull, girl boss feminism arguing for personal empowerment over collective liberation . . . In a world of easy, one-dimensional answers, [Srinivasan] is unquestionably the real deal' – Vogue Amia Srinivasan is the author of one of the most talked about books in recent times, The Right to Sex, which is published in paperback this May. A landmark collection of essays from one of the most exciting young philosophers at work today, it examines the politics and ethics of sex in the twenty-first century – from pornography to incels, rape culture to sex work. Lisa Taddeo is the New York Times-bestselling author of Three Women and Animal. For this special online event hosted by 5x15, two literary stars come together to discuss this groundbreaking book and the issues it raises. Amia Srinivasan was born in 1984 in Bahrain and raised in London, New York, Singapore and Taiwan. She is currently the Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at All Souls College, Oxford, and has held permanent or visiting academic posts at University College London, Yale, NYU and UCLA. The Right to Sex is her first book and was named Blackwell’s Book of the Year 2021. It was acclaimed by critics and authors ranging from Judith Butler and Katherine Rundell, to Pandora Sykes and Emily Ratajkowski. Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women (2019) became a world-wide sensation, forever changing how we think about women and desire. Nearly a decade in the making, Three Women was hailed instantly as a feminist classic – a staggering work of nonfiction that was the result of thousands of hours spent in the company of its subjects. Lisa has contributed to New York magazine, Esquire, Elle, Glamour and many other publications, and her short stories have won two Pushcart Prizes. Her debut novel, Animal, was published in 2021 and described by Marian Keyes as ‘like a series of grenades exploding'. 5x15 brings together outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

William Atkins’s third book, EXILES, tells the story of three nineteenth-century dissidents whose lives were profoundly shaped by the winds of empire, nationalism and autocracy that continue to blow today. A masterpiece of storytelling, travel writing and imaginative empathy, it is a book about displacement, colonialism and what it means to have a home. The Moor, William’s first book, was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize; his second, The Immeasurable World, won the Stanford Dolman Travel Writing Award and the British Library Eccles Prize. He recently guest-edited a special travel-writing edition of Granta, and his journalism and reviews have appeared in Harper’s, the Guardian and the New York Times. With thanks for your support for 5x15 online5x15 brings together outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

The Secret Barrister is a junior barrister specialising in criminal law. Their first book, The Secret Barrister, won a number of awards and has been in the top ten bestsellers for more than a year; their second, Fake Law, was also an instant bestseller. In NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH, the Secret Barrister reveals their personal story, charting their journey to the Bar and lifting the lid on life inside the Inns of Court. They also describe their transformation into a campaigner for reform, intent on exposing the lies, secrets, crises and failures of our creaking, ailing justice system. With thanks for your support for 5x15 online5x15 brings together outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Lea Ypi’s memoir of growing up in communist Albania, FREE, is an unforgettable coming-of-age story exploring the meaning of freedom in all its forms. It was hailed by Phillipe Sands as ‘a lyrical memoir, of deep and affecting power, of the sweet smell of humanity mingled with flesh, blood and hope’ and was shortlisted for the 2021 Costa Biography Award and the 2021 Baille Gifford Prize. Lea Ypi is Professor of Political Theory at the London School of Economics, and Political Science and Adjunct Professor in Philosophy at the Australian National University. She speaks six languages and lives in London. With thanks for your support for 5x15 online5x15 brings together outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Luke Harding returns to 5x15 to discuss Ukraine, Russia, Putin and what happens next. Luke is an award-winning foreign correspondent with the Guardian and a #1 New York Times bestselling author. Between 2007 and 2011 he was the Guardian's Moscow bureau chief; the Kremlin expelled him from the country in the first case of its kind since the cold war. He is the author of Collusion, A Very Expensive Poison, The Snowden Files, and Mafia State, as well as the co-author of WikiLeaks and The Liar (nominated for the Orwell Prize). Two of Harding's books – The Fifth Estate and Snowden – have been made into films. With thanks for your support for 5x15 online5x15 brings together outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories