Iain Sinclair reads from All the Devils are Here, Whitstable Biennale, 2016. Image: Bernard G Mills

Talks, readings and conversations
David Seabrook: All the Devils Are Here – a celebration and reading of the entire work

Saturday 11 June 2016
11.00—until we we finish reading approx 19:00

Whitstable Museum Courtyard

Sign-up here to become a reader.

Join writer Iain Sinclair, poet Simon Smith and filmmaker Paul Tickell in a celebration of the life and work of Kent writer David Seabrook, and a day-long, continuous shared reading of his singular study of the county.

The day will begin at 11am in the Museum Courtyard with an introductory conversation between Iain Sinclair, Paul Tickell and Simon Smith, plus audience questions, chaired by curator Gareth Evans. Guest readings will follow.

In his distinctive 2002 work, the late David Seabrook (1960-2009) takes the reader on a deranged exploration of the coast towns of Thanet and the Medway.

‘Seabrook lives in the county; from the autobiographical glimpses he provides, he seems to have done so all his life. However, his book is only fleetingly interested in modern Kent, that bruised thumb of land with its asylum-seekers and troubled resorts. His contemporary descriptions are spare and vivid – a seafront bench is painted “ketchup red” – but they are mainly context for a deeper project. Seabrook takes four famously unsettling works of literature – The Waste Land by TS Eliot, The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens, Robin Maugham’s The Servant and John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps – and attempts to expose their origins in real Kentish places and past events.’

(Andy Beckett, from The Guardian.)

We are inviting people to sign-up in advance to read fifteen minute segments (approx. six pages), to complete the entire reading of book. There will be a limited number of slots available if you turn up on the day.

We would love you to join us in the morning in order to register your booking and then stay for the day, but if this is not possible, we ask readers to arrive at least one hour before their slot. Please make yourself known to the organiser on arrival.

This event was free to attend as a reader or audience member.

With thanks to Whitstable Museum.