Events
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9 May 2012
Bloomsbury Season: Chris Mullin at Waterstones Gower Street -
11 May 2012
Chris Mullin: ‘A Walk-On Part – my view of the Blair years’ at the Dulwich festival -
13 May 2012
Natalie Haynes at the Bristol Festival of Ideas: Why Isn’t Old Philosophy Just History? -
15 May 2012
Heffers: The Ancient Guide to Modern Life: A comedy night with Natalie Haynes -
18 May 2012
Roman Krznaric at the Swindon Festival of Literature -
25 May 2012
Richard Mabey at the Saffron Walden Literary Festival -
29 May 2012
Kim Thuy at the Asia House Festival of Asian Literature -
31 May 2012
John Sutherland at the Salisbury International Arts Festival -
29 May 2012
Sam Leith at the Salisbury International Arts Festival -
1 June 2012
Louise Foxcroft at the Salisbury International Arts Festival -
6th June 2012
Jasper Rees at the Hay Festival -
13 June 2012
David Shukman at the Cheltenham Science Festival -
9th June 2012
Simon Jenkins at the Hay Festival
Bobby Baker wins the MIND Book of the Year 2011
13 September 2011
Mental health charity Mind presented renowned performance artist Bobby Baker with its prestigious Book of the Year Award for her outstanding Diary Drawings: Mental Illness and Me on Monday 12 September. The work, which is a collection of drawings created over a decade of her life, is a poignant visual documentary of Bobby’s experiences of mental, and later physical, ill-health as well as her eventual recovery.
Diary Drawings is a collection of 158 drawings from a total of 711 which Bobby produced between 1997 and 2008, and the first book of its kind to win the award in its 30 year history. The combination of drawings and writing provides a graphic, often darkly comic insight into the life of an artist grappling with huge internal upheavals. As well as an introductory essay by author Marina Warner, Diary Drawings also includes essays both by Bobby and by her daughter Dora Whittuck, a clinical psychologist.
Originally intended to be private, these 158 diary drawings were first shown in a hugely popular exhibition at the Wellcome Collection in London in 2009, which was attended by 53,000 visitors in 4 months.
Mind Book of the Year judges, Fay Weldon, Blake Morrison and Michèle Roberts chose Diary Drawings from over 100 entries as this year’s greatest literary contribution to increasing understanding of mental health issues.
Judge Fay Weldon said of Diary Drawings: Mental Illness and Me:
“This is the first graphic autobiography we’ve ever had in Mind’s Book of the Year – and it was very graphic! She’s such an energetic and lively person and this just shows through in her honest view of herself and people around her. You can’t help but respond to it. I think there’s a sea change with this year’s entries into a kind of acceptance about the possibilities and the future people with mental health problems can have.”
On winning Bobby Baker said:
“I’ve scarcely ever won anything in my life! I can’t imagine anything I’d be more proud to win in my whole life than the Mind Book of the Year Award. I’m beyond pleased and it means an awful lot to people like me who’ve had experience of mental illness and for my family too.”
The annual Mind Book of the Year Award, now in its 30th year, celebrates outstanding works of fact or fiction that heighten understanding of mental health issues.
