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Celebrated novelist and screenwriter William Boyd talks to Bodley’s Libarian Richard Ovenden about his life and work. Following the lecture, he will receive the Bodley Medal, awarded to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the worlds in which the Bodleian is active including literature, culture, science and communication.

Boyd is author of 14 novels, many of which have won awards including the Whitbread Award and Somerset Maugham prize for A Good Man in Africa, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for An Ice Cream War, the McVitie prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Brazzaville Beach and Costa Novel of the Year for Restless. In 2012 he was commissioned by the Ian Fleming Estate to write a new James Bond novel, Solo, about a veteran Bond returning to action. Boyd is also a well-known screenwriter. He has adapted many of his own novels for screen and co-wrote the screenplay for Richard Attenborough’s Chaplin. Boyd is particularly known for his great storytelling. His works are placed in many historic 20th-century settings around the world. The latest is Sweet Caress: The Many Lives of Amory Clay.

Following this event, Boyd will be presented with the Bodley Medal, the highest honour of the Bodleian Libraries. Previous recipients include Peter Carey, Alan Bennett, Oliver Sacks, Hilary Mantel, Nicholas Hytner, Ian McEwan and Professor Mary Beard.

Presented by the Bodleian Libraries.