BFL18 - George Sand - A Uniquely Modern Figure

Cigar smoking, gender-nonconforming, bisexual, polyamorous - and the intellectual equal of any man - George Sand was the beating heart of the literary scene in early 19th century Paris.  What can we learn from the way she lived? Was her iconoclasm simply an act of courage, a declaration of absolute autonomy, or did her sexual and emotional relationships with the leading figures of her day - from Frederic Chopin to Gustave Flaubert - form part of her dialogue with the world, a dialogue intrinsic to writing itself?

Award-winning writer, Professor Fiona Sampson reassesses this uniquely modern figure, 150 years after her death. 

Fiona Sampson MBE FRSL is a leading British poet, a writer and Romanticist. Professor Emerita of Poetry, University of Roehampton and Senior Research Fellow at Harris Manchester College University of Oxford, she has received numerous national and international literary awards. Translated into over thirty languages, she’s the author of two acclaimed biographies. In Search of Mary Shelley was an Observer, Independent, FT and Times Book of the Year. Two-Way Mirror was Washington Post Book of the Year, New York Times Editors' Choice, finalist for the Plutarch Prize & US PEN’s Jacqueline Bograd Weld international award for biography.