IQ Debates
GALA EVENT: A conversation with Gore Vidal
20th May, 2008Gore Vidal
Giant of American letters, Gore Vidal is a novelist, essayist and playwright whose career spans six decades. Outspoken critic of the American Establishment, he has been a unique presence on the stage of politics, history and culture, many of whose key figures he has known. He first came to attention with his 1948 novel The City and the Pillar which outraged mainstream critics as the first major American novel to feature unambiguous homosexuality.
In addition to a major sequence of seven novels about American history, and such satirical novels as Myra Breckinridge and Duluth, he has written dozens of television plays, film scripts, and over a hundred essays, gathered in several volumes published between 1962 and 2001.
A renowned wit, his sayings include:
"It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail."
"A narcissist is someone better looking than you are."
"Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies."
"Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half."
Melvyn Bragg
Broadcaster, novelist and writer, Lord Bragg is perhaps best known for the LWT arts programme The South Bank Show, which he has written, edited and produced since 1978. He is also known for his many programmes on BBC Radio 4, including Start the Week, which he presented for ten years, In Our Time, and The Routes of English, a history of the English language. He is a Labour life peer.
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