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From Lebanon to the Frontlines with Sorj Chalandon & Fergal Keane

Sat 20 June
Books & Ideas
Talks
Beyond Words

Award-winning journalist and novelist Sorj Chalandon joins BBC correspondent Fergal Keane for a conversation on war and storytelling. Reflecting upon Chalandon’s novel The Fourth Wall, set amid the Lebanese civil war, and Keane’s decades of reporting across global conflicts, they will explore how stories are shaped, what remains unsaid, and how writers and journalists bear witness to lives transformed by violence.

Sorj Chalandon’s Le Quatrième Mur (Grasset, 2013) was translated by Cheney Crow as The Fourth Wall (The Lilliput Press). Set in Beirut in 1982, at the height of the Lebanese civil war, the novel follows a young French activist tasked with staging a production of Jean Anouilh’s Antigone with a cast drawn from across the country’s warring communities. Conceived as an act of peace, the project is soon overtaken by the brutal realities of conflict, in a powerful and deeply personal novel inspired by Chalandon’s own experiences as a journalist in the Middle East. Winner of the Prix Goncourt des lycéens and the Choix de l’Orient.

The conversation will be moderated by Fiona O’Brien, Director for Europe and Central Asia at the Committee to Protect Journalists.

  • Language: in English and French
  • Price: £10, conc. £8, students £5

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About the authors

Sorj Chalandon

Sorj Chalandon was a reporter for Libération from 1974 to 2008, during which time he was awarded the Albert Londres prize for his writing on the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and his reporting on the trial of Nazi criminal Klaus Barbie. He went on to work for Le Canard Enchaîné. He is the author of a dozen novels, all originally published in French by Éditions Grasset. His numerous literary awards include Le Grand Prix du Roman de l'Académie Française, and le Prix Médicis. His 2013 novel Le Quatrième Mur won the prestigious Prix Goncourt des Lycéens, and the Goncourt de l'Orient, among other accolades, and has been adapted for stage and screen, and translated into 10 languages. The novel was translated into English by Cheney Crow in 2026 as The Fourth Wall, and published by Lilliput Press.


  • Picture: JF PAGA

Fergal Keane

Fergal Keane is one of the BBC’s best-known correspondents and has won numerous awards for his reports from the world’s trouble spots. He has been the BBC’s correspondent in Africa, Asia and Northern Ireland as well as a peripatetic reporter following conflict around the globe. He has won a BAFTA, EMMY and the George Orwell Prize for political literature for his eyewitness account of the Rwandan genocide. He has written numerous bestselling books combining historical perspectives with deeply personal remembrances. He is an Honorary Fellow of the British Academy. Keane is married to his filmmaking partner, the Oscar winning French director Alice Doyard. They live between London and Paris.

 

Fiona O'Brien

Fiona O'Brien is a London-based journalist, writer and press freedom advocate. Currently Director for Europe and Central Asia at the Committee to Protect Journalists, she started her career as a correspondent in Africa and the Middle East, reporting for Reuters on politics and wars including Iraq, Sudan and the DRC. She has worked for the United Nations, and spent many years teaching journalism at Kingston University. Also a writer of fiction, she was one of the London Library's Emerging Writers in 2024/25.

See also screening of The Fourth Wall

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