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Simon P. Walker explores Benedictus, the last work by late Irish poet, author and priest John O’Donohue, with readings by Tracey Shotliff and Milly Sinclair. Prior to his unexpected death in 2008, O’Donohue published Benedictus, A Book of Blessings. The remarkable poetic invocations in this book offer a ‘shelter’ for those crossing thresholds in their lives, reawakening on older form of speaking lost from our modern world. This is an opportunity to sit under some of O’Donohue’s haunting benedictions, and to hear Walker explore the art of blessing as a way to accompany those negotiating the boundaries of life.

Walker is an author, thinker and speaker. He returns to Oxford three years after launching his most recent book, The Undefended Life, at the 2011 festival.
He has written extensively about the decline of social mobility in Britain. Walker taught at Oxford University from 2003-9 and has lectured internationally from Africa to India, America and Europe.