University of East Anglia (UEA), Norwich

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UEA Halls of Residence

The university is also home to the Sainsbury Centre - a Norman Foster designed building which houses the private art collection of the Sainsbury family. There are three Henry Moore sculptures outside this building.

Henry Moore Sculpture (Outside Sainsbury Centre)

In 1970, Malcolm Bradbury and Angus Wilson founded the famous MA in Creative Writing course at the university. It was the first course of its kind and has spawned many imitators. Its emphasis has traditionally been on fiction, but poets such as Andrew Motion (the Poet Laureate) and Michèle Roberts have been involved as tutors. Since its inception it has produced many famous students (and tutors) including: Rose Tremain, Angela Carter, Clive Sinclair, Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro (An Artist of the Floating World).

Malcolm Bradbury (1932-2000) was a critic, novelist and TV script writer. He is probably best known for The History Man (1975) - a campus novel set in the fictional university of Watermouth - which later became a TV play. Eating People is Wrong (1959) was an earlier campus novel with a similar satirical tone. Angus Wilson (1913-1991) was also a novelist and is particularly remembered for Anglo-Saxon Attitudes (1956) and The Old Men at the Zoo (1961). Wilson lived for many years in a cottage at Felsham Woodside in Suffolk.  He also edited East Anglia in Verse and Prose (1982) - a collection which has proved invaluable in constructing this website.

The Heart of Darkness

It has to be said that many of the writers associated with the UEA Creative Writing course have not been directly influenced by Norfolk - but have brought with them inspirations from other parts of the country. However Andrew Cowan and Lynne Bryan are two writers who have chosen to live in Norwich and whose work has clearly been inspired by Norwich and Norfolk.

W.G Sebald - although not linked to the writing course - was a German lecturer at the UEA from 1970-2001. See Poringland and Framingham Earl.

UEA was also the place where Charlie Higson and Paul Whitehouse met during the 1970s. These two comedians later went on to play a pivotal role in The Fast Show. One of the characters in the show - Bob Fleming -  the terminally coughing host of Country Matters may well have been inspired by Anglia TV's Bygones - which was introduced by Dick Joice. While at UEA, Higson was also the lead singer of the new wave band The Higsons. Higson's brother was a lecturer in film studies at the university.

Charlie Higson UEA Alumnus
 

Links:

More UEA Photographs

Creative Writing at the UEA

UEA Literary Archives